Tunes of troubles
by Ragna ICEland
Summary: Just an attempt to combine two of my favourite hobbies the Hardy boys and the Eurovision Song Contest...one must just judge for himherself how it's working. Please read and more importantly review! Ch 12 Finished!
1. Default Chapter

_**Tunes of trouble **_

_**by **_

**_Ragna ICE(land)_ **

_Summary: Just an attempt to combine two of my favourite hobbies -the Hardy boys and the Eurovision Song Contest...one must just jugde for him/herself how it's working._

_**A/N: Although it may seem for the first two or three chapters that Fenton is the lead character in the story, it'll be more about just Frank and Joe in later chapters and I know that the characters may be out of characters but I'm just not very good at making other character the way they should be without adding something from myself to them...**_

**_This story is supposed to take place in a few years from now, everything concerning the competition in the story is fiction but everything about all previous competitions mentioned is true unless I state else._**

**Chapter 1**

17 year old Joe stretched his arms as he stepped out of the plane after hours in it. His brother Frank, older by a year, was right behind him and so was their father, the private detective Fenton Hardy. They walked through the passageway to the terminal, collecting their luggage from the conveyer belt and then headed out of the airport building, gratefully inhaling the fresh air. The brothers were different as night and day, with Joe being the day by the looks. He was 6 feet tall exactly, blond and blue eyed and muscular. Frank was a little bit taller, a little less muscular, hair and eyes both dark and he looked pretty much like a younger version of their father.

Fenton scanned the area for someone he knew. He was startled when a voice came up behind him.

,Mr. Hardy!" Fenton turned around. A five foot nine, dark-haired, blue-eyed, quite ordinary looking man came out of the airport building, he was probably in his mid thirties or so, wearing dark grey suits and had a knee long black coat on his arm, "Welcome to Madrid," he said, although obviously british, judged on his accent,"I was looking for you in there."

,Well, I didn't recognize you but I assume you're Mr. Belson?" Fenton said while shaking the man's hand.

,I am indeed -but please, call me Steven," Belson smiled.

,Will do...these are my sons, by the way, Frank and Joe."

The brothers shook hands with Steven who then guided them through the parking lot to a newly silver sedan. A teenage girl was tilting on the bonnet. Definately a punker. She was greeneyed, tall and tanned with dark long hair (actullay with purple and red highlights in it) gathered in a ponytail, her nose was pierced and when she eagerly munched her chewing gum someone could have noticed that so was her tounge. A lot of tattoos and bracelets covered her rather muscular arms and all in all she looked really rough.

,That's Maggie, my...uh...stepdaughter...erm...she doesn't like me much..." Steven whispered to Fenton.

,But I like her," Joe said to his brother in a low voice.

Frank rolled his eyes. ,Well, of course you would..." he said mockingly.

Maggie stood up as they came closer. ,Whzzzup!" she said, overdoing a kind-of-Afro-American accent, "I'm Maggie," she grabbed Fenton's hand and shook it, then turned to Frank and Joe repeating the action and then snatched the backpack and sportbag from their hands and carelessly tossed it to the trunk of the car but either of them minded it because they were busy checking if they fingers were broken from her strong handshake.

Maggie got into the driverseat, Steven to the passenger seat and the Hardys stuffed themselves to the backseat. ,If I were you, I'd fasten the seatbelts," Belson warned. The backseatpassengers did so and did not regret it as Maggie sped through the spanish capital, beautiful stonebuildings flying by. That was okay since the Hardys had been there a time of two before.

After 30 minutes they arrived at their hotel.

,I have already got you a rental car as you asked for, it's that dark green sedan over there, powerful enough and not too 'visible', the keys are in a safe-deposit box in the hotel lobby, you'll just give the receptionist your name and room number to receive them," Belson explained.

,Are you staying here as well?" Frank asked.

Steven nodded. ,Yes, we are," he got the key to the hotelroom in the lobby and led the way to the elevator, "I actually held the room beside ours for you."

,Oh, that's great. Then we can just settle in and come over and we can talk," Joe said.

,Exactly," Steven answered.

The elevator opened to a hallway on the third floor. The hallway really was a balcony. Steven and Maggie, who was carrying Fentons suitcase, stopped in front of room nr. 374.

,This is our room, the next is yours," he said, handing the key to Fenton and Maggie put the suitcase at his feet.

,Thanks."

The three entered room 375.

There was a kitchencorner, a comfortable livingroom with nice furnitures and balconies, tv and radio, large bathroom and two bedrooms, one with two bed and another with one bed, that was Fenton's. Everything was in bright colours and there were some food and drinks in the fridge already, Steven had probably arranged that.

Joe dropped his bag on his bed, got himself a soda from the fridge and went out on the balcony. There was a swimming pool on the hotel lawn, a few kids were playing in it, palm trees all around. Joe took a sip of the bottle and thought of the little he knew about the task ahead.

,Hi there," a voice at his side made him jump. Maggie was leaning over the parapet of her balconies, to get by the wall that seperated the balconies for each hotel room. ,I startled you? Sorry."

,No worries," Joe said.

,Is the room okay?"

,Yeah, it's great!" Joe flashed her a big grin.

,Good," she disappeared round the wall.

,That was just too obvious," Frank said, standing behind his brother in the doorway.

,What's that's supposed to mean?" Joe asked innocently then giving in,"All right, and you are the flirting expert here?"

,No way, I didn't say that, I just said that you were being too obvious, especially for this girl, who by the way gives me creeps..." Frank shivered melodramaticly.

,Boys, I'm heading over to Belsons, you coming?" Fenton called from inside.

,Yeah dad, just a second," Joe called back. They went back inside, Joe put the half-emty bottle back into the fridge, then followed his brother and father out the door to the next. Fenton knocked.

Steven came to the door. ,So you didn't get tired after the flight?" he said, smiling. He had changed into more casual clothes, jeans and a white shirt.

,Nah, we slept plenty on the plane," Fenton said.

In the living room he motioned for them to have a seat. Maggie was nowhere to be seen.

,Want a drink?" he asked.

,No thanks," Fenton said cutting straight to the point, "You called on a short notice, I haven't had the chance to explain the matter properly to my sons, and frankly I'm not fully aware of the matter myself, so if you'd begin from the beginning, please..."

,Right, well," Steven began,"I usually work for BBC but right now for EBU-"

,The European Broadcasting Union, right?" Frank cut in.

,Correct, more specifically, in the eurovision department that represents the biggest event for EBU: the Eurovsion Song Contest...now, you're Americans, what do you know about this contest?"

,Um...it's...a song competition...?" Joe suggested sheepishly.

,It's a song contest where european nations compete," Frank shrugged, "And that's it..."

,_That's it?" _Steven repeated, "Well yeah -but...it's **huge!**"

,All right, keep going," Fenton said before the man became upset.

,Well, there are about 40 nations competing this year. The contest is split in two nights, a semi-final and a final with one day between. There are always 14 nations already guaranteed in the finals: the host -the nation that won last year, in this case Spain-, the big four -that's UK, Germany, France and Spain-, and then 9 top scorers from last year, unless one of the big four becomes a host, then last year's top 10 will be in the finals, always apart from big four. Those are privileges due to financial reasons. In the semi-finals the rest of the competitors compete for the first ten places and they will proceed into the finals, so in the end there will be 24 nations in the finals. All results are decided by televoting in each competing country. A person is chosen to report the results and we show it live. We show live from about 40 countries, and we show live _to more _than 40 countries, the european countries that aren't taking part, and countries beyond Europe, Australia, Japan, Jordan, Egypt and on the internet...you realise just how grand this is?"

,Well, when you put it like that..." Frank cleared his throat.

,And we are here to do what?" Fenton pressed.

,I am the director of the competiton...temporarily since the actual director went missing two days ago."

,Ah, now things are finally coming together," Joe said, "Not that, those weren't good information," he added after hearing how he sounded.

,Now, there's a lot of pressure on me, the contest is in two weeks from now, contestants will arrive in one week. There'll be loads of press conferences, rehearsals everyday...I don't know what we're up against. We have received no ransom note but we've had threats telling us to cancel the competiton, I've given the threat notes to the police but I fear that the chaos around the whole thing won't be able to stay quiet, which will lead to cancelling the contest or something worse...basicly, I want you to find out just what the heck is going on and find Salvatore Elina, our original director, preferably within two weeks -most preferably within a week, well, if possible..."

,We will," Joe said reassuringly.

,We'll do our best but I won't promise anything," Fenton amended, not wanting to give Steven false hopes.

,When will you begin?" Steven asked.

Fenton looked at his watch. ,Soon -today, we have very limitied time...after some good lunch."

,It's only lunch time?" Joe said surprised, glancing at his own watch.

,It's 3 p.m. actually, but I want to get something to eat before we start."

,Oh, I know about a fantastic restaurant nearby, you should go there, on the EBU, we have an account..." Steven said.

,Thank you but I really..." Fenton begun but was cut off.

,Oh come on, the least we can do is providing food."

,Well, you've already provided the car and a place to stay at, that's usually enough so..." Fenton looked at Belsons determined face and began laughing, "All right, all right, we'll...go there if it makes you feel better."

,Good, this is the address...-"

_**A/N: I know nothing of Spain, don't know why I chose that country, it's kinda fictional here, besides, I'll be using a lot of spanish words, but only small words, how can they go wrong? I'll just cross my fingers and hope that no spanish people will read this : P...and if smeone reads this story that happens to know more about the ESC than me (as unlikely as it is, I am THE Eurovision freak) and sees something wrong, please, notify me.**_


	2. 2

_**Katie janeway, Branwen and Paris: thanks a million for your reviews! I think I know what you mean about the quotation marks but it wasn't supposed to appear the way it did, it's probably because I just got a new computer which I'm not enirely in control of but I think I've fixed it.**_

_**And well, like it says here comes... **_

**Chapter 2**

The Hardys were sitting in a comfortable restaurant, enjoying their spicy spanish beef.

"What's first stop?" Frank asked, downing the food with coke.

"The police station. I know a man there, sergeant José Moneo, he might have something," Fenton answered.

"Hopefully. 'Cause we really don't have anything to go on," Joe commented.

"Well, why would someone want to kidnap a song competition director?" Frank wondered.

"Maybe, it's personal and has nothing to do with his job," Joe suggested.

"Belson said _he went missing_, we don't know whether if he was kidnapped yet," Fenton said.

"Yeah, but how 'bout the threats they've been getting?" Frank asked.

"Who is _they_, is it Belson or is it the EBU, we didn't ask..." Joe said.

"I'm guessing the broadcasting union," Frank said.

"Well, if you're done eating, perhaps someone at the station can tell us something," their father concluded.

After putting the meals on the EBU account, Fenton drove to the police station where he had his connctions.

"José Moneo?" Fenton asked the receptionist who gave him directions in spanish.

"Gracias," he thanked and followed the directions which led to an office in a badly lighted corridor. He knocked on the half open door and heard a deep male voice from inside.

"Ingresar!"

Fenton pushed the door open and went inside. A dark haired man (with bald spot on his pate) was sitting at the large wooden desk talking on the phone in his own language. He looked up when Fenton came in and his face lit up in a smile. He was chubby with a sizable brown mustache covering the space between his nose and upper lip ( actually the lip itself too). He said good-bye to whoever he was talking to and hung up.

"Fenton! How very nice to see you!" he said with his natural spanish accent and glanced curiously at the brothers that were standing in the doorway.

"Yeah, long time, no see," Fenton smiled and sat into an armchair in fron tof the desk and pointed towards his sons. ,You haven't met Frank and Joe, have you?"

"No, I haven't. Nice to meet you...please come in and have a seat," Moneo said then turned his attention to Fenton, "So what brings you to Spain this time?" He answered the question himself. "The contest, isn't it?" he guessed, "You're the private investigator the EBU hired."

"That's right."

"And your sons will help you?"

"Yup, or even solve the case before me, I wouldn't be too surprised," Fenton said proudly.

"Ah, and they've had the best teacher available," the sergeant leaned forward, suddenly all about business, "So what is it that you need?"

"A place to start from really, I'm not sure where to begin," Fenton said.

"Salvatore Elina?" José suggested, "His family filed in for a missing person two days ago. We don't have any lead on what happened to him. It seems he just disappeared into thin air..."

"Maybe we could go talk to his family?" Frank said.

"We have questioned them...but maybe you can work out something," José hesitated, "Your...your hands are not as tied as ours so...so perhaps..."

Not wanting to get the sergeant into troubles, Fenton cut him off. "Well, I'm sure we'll come up with something, we always do but please do call me if you feel there is anything I need to know to solve the case."

"Sí, if you do the same," Moneo answered. They exchanged cell phone numbers.

"What about the threat notes?" Frank suddenly asked.

"They're still being analyzed but so far they're clear so we just have to wait for complete results before we can do something."

,Then I guess we should get going, can you give me Elina's address?" Fenton asked.

José frowned and started digging in the piles of papers on his desk. "I can't find it right now..."

"It's all right, I'll call Belson," Fenton stood up and held out his hand to Moneo,"Thanks for your time."

He took it and shook it and turned it and patted on the back of the hand. "I whish you the best of luck, Fenton, don't forget to call me!"

"I won' t, promise," Fenton answered laughing.

"Nice to meet you, boys," José said as they walked out the door.

"You too, sergeant," Joe said.

"Adiós!"

Fenton had already called Steven and gotten Elina's home address and memorized it when they got to the car. Fenton drove, Frank was in the passenger seat and Joe in the back seat.

The address led them to a white concrete villa in a peaceful suburb in the northern part of the city. They parked across the street crossed it and Frank knocked on the wooden door.

A girl, maybe 10 or 11 opened it, she had a long, black plait dangling on her back and enormous brown puppy eyes. "Sí?"

"Do you speak english?" Joe asked.

The girl nodded. "A little."

"Is your mom at home?"

"Sí."

"Can we talk to her?"

The girl turned into the house and shouted: "Mamá!"

The house was on two floors and the stairs was opposite to the front door so the Hardys saw a middle aged woman come down. One immediately would have thought that either she had looked just like her daughter on her age or that the girl would be very much like her mother when she got older, same slim body, same black pait and same large brown eyes.

"Hola?" the woman said.

"Senora Elina? Do you speak english?" Fenton asked.

"Yes..." she replied.

"I am private investigator Fenton Hardy and those are my sons Frank and Joe, we were hired by the EBU to find your husband," Fenton explained.

"And have you found him?"

"Um...no, not yet. We just arrived today..."

"The police has already been here asking questinons..." Mrs. Elina said tiredly resting her hands on the girl's shoulders.

"Well, I'm afraid I will have to ask you some of the same questions again, senora," Fenton said patiently.

She sighed. "Very well, come on in."

The Hardys entered the house. Mrs. Elina guided them into the living room. A slim, dark haired teenage boy, probably 14 or 15 sat in the sofa, his eyes fixed on MTV on the television.

His mother took the remote control and turned it off. She said something to the boy in spanish. Probably to go to his room or somewhere because he stood up and left the room. The girl followed.

"Sit down," Elina offered when they were gone, "Coffee?"

"No, thank you," Fenton declined, "So when was the last time you saw or heard from your husband?"

"Two days ago. He was just going to work at 9 a.m. as usually but then I got a call from his work because he hadn't arrived two hours later but his car was in the parking lot so he had been there and then disappeared. I tried to call his cell phone and beeper but he didn't answer so I called his parents and a few of our friends and...he wasn't anywhere."

"Did he ever speak of some sort of enemies or somebody who might be threating his job...something like that?"

"It's the first time he was asked to direct the contest and he was very very excited about it but I don't recall...well, there is always very tight security around the contest, especially if there should be some problems, nothing's ever happened until now that I know of. There were actually protests a few days ago about because of the Israeli competitiors...-"

"Israeli? But Israel is not in Europe," Frank stated.

"No but it's part of EBU all the same, the fact is: any nation can join the EBU for fees. I remember in 1980 that the Moroccan participated. The Israelis said that they wouldn't compete again in the same contest as Morocco and in 2005 _Lebanon_ had to withdraw because they couldn't guarantee that the Israeli entry would be broadcasted in Lebanon, but it's a eurovision rule to broadcast all entries. Those politics...Lebanon tried to enter again this year but the same thing happened and so the Lebanese supporters were protesting, wanting to have the Israelis thrown out but the police took care of that and the case was closed."

"Unless the Lebanese people won't give up like that," Joe said.

"But why kidnap Salvatore? He was only the stage director, he doesn't control things like that," Mrs. Elina said sadly.

"It's only a guess, it could be something totally different," Fenton said.

"Is that him?" Joe suddenly asked looking up at a enlarged photgraph in a frame hanging on the wall above the tv.

Mrs. Elina looked at it. "Yes, it was taken at Raoul's confirmation last year."

The Hardys studied the photograph. There were all the four members of the family dressed in their best, the teen was wearing a white gland. His sister was in front of him, the parents behind. Salvatore Elina was a chubby bald man about fifty, with a black typical spanish mustache, but his smile was happy and the brown eyes of the family shone with pride.

Mrs. Elina sighed dreamily. "Ah, he hasn't changed a bit since 20 years ago," she said smiling.

The Hardys smiled back.

"So what exactly is it that a stage director does?" Frank asked.

"He is in charge of the light-sound-stage and camera crew, he helps contestants with their performances and to adjust the performance to the stage, and makes sure that rules are being followed. He's involved with opening-and-interval acts, how the hosts are supposed to be...this kind of things..."

"You know how many people he's in charge of?" Fenton questioned thoughtfully.

Mrs. Elina thought for a while. "I'd say between 250 and 300."

If Joe would have been drinking something he would have choked on it. He turned to his dad. "Um...dad...just so you know it, we are _not_ about to question all of these people _and_ solve the case in two weeks and definately not in one week!"

"I-I guess not," his father mumbled. He asked the woman a few more questions which she answered as precisely as she could but the Hardys didn't gain much. Finally they decided they knew everything she could tell them and prepared to leave. Fenton gave her his P.I. card with the cell phone number on it.

"If there's anything, you just give me a call, senora."

She took the card. "I will."

"Have a good day."

"You too. Adiós."

"_Have a good day?" _Joe repeated once they were outside, "Her husband just went missing!"

It was getting dark.

"What was I supposed to say?" Fenton raised his eyebrows as he slid into the car.

Joe sighed heavily. "Never mind," he muttered.

Since it was getting late the Hardys decided to call it a day and go back to the hotel.

By the time they arrived there the sky was pitch dark.

Frank threw himself onto the couch in the living room, just now starting to feel the jet lag.

Fenton poured soda into a glass. Joe opened the door to the balcony to let in some fresh air.

"Hi!"

Joe jumped. Then he looked up angrily.

Maggie was standing exactly where she had been standing earlier that day,"Startled you again, did I? Gotta stop doing that, huh?"

Joe just glared at her without a word.

"Anyway," she continued, "Steven and dad are insisting you come over for dinner, you should, dad's a real good cook."

"Your dad's here?" Joe asked, wondering how her father and stepfather could be such good friends.

"Yes, of course, you don't acutally think I'd be hanging here alone with Steven, do you? Then rather send me to Hell...! So you're coming?" she disappeared again.

_If it continues like that I'm gonna have a heart attack pretty soon_, Joe thought to himself when he went inside. He patted on his brothers leg. "Get up, bro! We are being invitied to dinner next door," he informed.

Frank yawned. "Now?"

"Yup."

Frank stood up, stretched and yawned again. "Okay."

The three went to their neighbours room, smelling something good, they didn't know what, but it smelt good. Steven was settling the table in the living room. Maggie and another man were standing over the stove in the kitchen.

"Any luck today?" Steven asked.

"I don't know, our possible suspect isn't very possible," Fenton said.

"Well, you've still got some time, I mean, you only arrived today, anyways, here's a man I'd like you to meet," Steven said as the man from the kitchen came with a pot in his hands which he placed on the table and rubbed his hands on the chequer stub he was wearing. He was about 40 years old, rather tall and muscular with auburn hair and green eyes and freckles.

Steven put a hand on his shoulder. "This is William West...-"

"Call me Bill," William said.

"And Bill, this is Mr. Fenton Hardy and his two sons, Frank -the one who looks just like Fenton- and Joe."

"Hello, nice to meet you," Bill smiled and shook hands with them, "You've already met my daughter, Maggie...?"

"Yes, we have," Fenton said politely, feeling the tensity between the two men -_not_ that in the negative sense of the word...

"If that's the one who nearly broke my fingers today, then yes, I've met her," Frank said, also noticing the connections and trying to keep a straight face.

Bill smiled. "Ah, yes, that's her," he said and looked at Maggie who was still in the kitchencorner.

There were a few moments of akward silence.

Then Steven cleared his throat and went to get a bottle of beer to the fridge. He opened the bottle, closed the fridge and leand against the door of it. He rubbed the bottle spout against his lower lip, obviously thinking something. Then he finally looked up.

"You know, eurovision isn't considered the collest thing to be interested in, a large part of the eurovision fans are homo sexuals...for some reason..."

"As you know, we don't know so much about eurovision," Fenton said, uncertain of where this was leading.

Frank saw it before him. "Oh, please don't think we have prejudice against homo sexuals," he said, "We're really not like that," he assured.

Steven let out a breath of relief and smiled more relaxed. "Good, so it will not spoil our cooperation...?"

"No, no, of course not," Fenton said, also relieved.

Joe nodded his agreement. Then he suddenly felt someone's eyes on him and he looked behind and right into Bill's eyes.

Bill smiled sheepishly, caught in the act and Joe sent him a playful glare meaning: _"If you do that again..." _But he wasn't too comfortable with it though.

"So are we gonna eat or let the food get cold on the table?" Maggie asked joining them in the living room.

"You're right," Bill said, "Let's eat!"

And they ate. Bill was a great cook. A professional one in fact. And they talked casually over the meal. Then the Hardys went back to their room, Fenton called his wife, Laura and they dove into bed after a long day.


	3. 3

**_Thanks katie but, um, erm, eh...Branwen, d-did I forget to mention that I'm not good at spanish...that is spanish...? Right...? Am I supposed to say thanks or...? (gulp!)_**

**Chapter 3**

The Hardys were up early next morning. They started the day at the breakfast buffet in the hotel's dining room.

"What are we gonna do today?" Joe asked with his mouth full of cornflakes.

"Start question the crew. We can split up to enable the work. I might go and have a chat with the head of the eurovision department of the EBU," Fenton said.

"Hey, dad I was thinking," Frank began, "Have we checked Steven out, he sure has a motive, you know, getting to direct the whole thing because Elina isn't around..."

His father nodded. "I 've thought about that. He's been fined for driving drunk once but other than that he's still got a clean record."

"I don't think he would do something like that, it's not to his profit to take over this late," Joe said.

Frank shrugged. "You never know how desperate people can get."

"But I still don't think it's him, he's a nice guy," Joe defended.

"Got a crush on him, Joe?" Frank raised his eyebrows, grinning and Fenton burst out laughing.

Joe shook his head. "Screw you, Frank," he blushed. He blushed even more when he noticed that Steven, Bill and Maggie had just entered the dining room and hoped they hadn't heard that.

"Good morning, mates!" Steven called, strolling towards them with his tray, "You're up early!"

"Yeah, as you know we're in a hurry with the case," Fenton answered and smiled.

"What's your plans for the day?" Bill asked interested as the threesome took the table beside the Hardys.

"We were thinking we'd go to work with Steven and question his crew and associates, we may learn something from them," Fenton said.

"I hope so, all the pressure is starting to take it's toll," Steven yawned and poured his coffee over the cornflakes.

"It'll be fine, you're doing great!" Bill said reassuringly and slid his comforting hand up and down his boyfriend's back.

"Is that really good?" Joe wrinkled his nose, meaning the coffee soaked cornflakes.

"Yeah!" Steven crunched his cornflakes happily, "You should try it."

"No, thank you," the blond teen declined with a frown on his face and glanced at Maggie. She was quiet, also eating this british specailty, downing it with soda and burping every now and then.

Bill was clearly a little embarrassed by his daughter's behavior but he didn't say anything.

Joe and Maggie's eyes met but because they weren't really on the same wavelenght they were unable to have a conversation only with their eyes.

"Will you ride with us?" Steven asked when they were exiting the hotel.

"Nah, we can't be six in a five seated car," Fenton said.

"Very well then. Just follow us," Steven took the driverseat in the silver sedan while Joe drove the green one.

Close to the town centre there was a large building where the two dirvers parked at.

"Are you two part of the crew also?" Frank asked Bill and Maggie on their way into the building.

"Kind of, but not really, we help as we can though," Bill said.

Fenton was walking next to Steven. "Why would the EBU want you to direct instead of Elina?" he asked.

,Most probably because I directed it last year, things went smooth then," Steven replied.

"Did you know Elina personally?"

"Yes, he was my assistant when I directed and I was his assistant when he was supposed to direct."

"Why would the EBU want him to direct the contest in the first place?"

They were now entering the building. It was dark in the haliway but Steven went right through one door and into the enormous saloon.

"Wow!" Frank and Joe whistled.

"Because he's dedicated to his work and he does it with passion, he's imaginative and good with people, he's a great man," Steven answered Fenton's question.

There were plastic cloths all over, construction tools, giant ladders and fork lift trucks and all sorts of stuff everywhere, people in the ladders were doing something to either the lights or cameras in the ceiling above the stage in some distance, there were people fastening the settles and there were lots and lots of people doing their jobs. The 30 first settle rows or so were on the floor but from there the rows went upwards.

Fenton bit his lower lip, then lowered his voice. "And you two were only _working_ together,_ right_?"

Steven gazed at him, miffed, understanding the question. "Have you seen his picture?" he whispered.

"Yeah..."

"Well, that ougtha answer the question! I mean look at Bill, he's gorgeous!"

"I wouldn' t know," Fenton said looking down at the floor.

"Well, he is. Look, I have great respect for Mr. Elina and he's fun to work with, but beside the fact that he's no eye candy, he is not gay," Steven said.

"All right...one more question -and please don't be offended -where were you last saturday morning?"

Steven looked at him understandingly. "When Salvatore was kidnapped? I woke up at seven o'clock, ate breakfast at the hotel, then I came here at about eight where I spend the most of the day."

"And the hotel staff and the crew can confirm that?"

"I think so, yes."

"Good."

"And I called Mrs. Elina at half past ten when Salvatore still hadn't arrived."

"Even better."

"Hey, Steven, how many people can be here?" Joe asked.

"About 35,000 -and we're sold out!" Steven replied proudly.

"Are you kidding me?" Joe looked around impressed, "Wow! This really _is _huge!"

Steven waved his hand carelessly. "Oh, it's nothing, we're still outnumbered by the 2001 contest, it was held in Parken Stadium in Copenhagen and there were 38,000 in the audience."

"Awesome."

"What are those?" Frank asked and pointed towards many glass booths rearmost in the saloon.

"The commentator's cells...for the people that watches the contest on tv, they may not understand english or french -the hosts only speak them -so it's good to hear someone explain everything in their own language."

Frank nodded. "I see."

"This seems like a lot of fun," Joe said.

"Believe me, it is," Steven iterated.

"Well, we had better get started if we're ever going to finish," Fenton said. They decided Fenton would go backstage and the brothers would talk to the people working on the stage.

They walked through the settle rows down to the stage. It was a quite big, half-circle-shaped stage, made of metal and glass with lights in the floor. There were legdes here and there on the back of the stage floor, where e.g. backing vocals could stand. On the wall above the stage was a big screen where there would be close-ups of the contestants during the show. The eurovision logo -giant letters spelling the word: EuroVision but instead of the 'v' there was a heart filled with the colours of the spanish flag(because Spain was the host) -was above the screen, the letters were filled with blinking neonlamps. There were all kinds of lights everywhere -neon lights, blacklights, blinkers, laser beams -whatever, whereever -mostly in the ceiling above the stage, some beyond the saloon, some on the walls...none of them were turned on at the moment though but one would probably wonder wheather people wouldn't go blind on the contest...

There were some native young men on the stage working with a camera that came down from the ceiling, hanging in racks and stout vires. The camera was that high up in the air that one of the men was standing in a stepladder to reach it. When he was done with whatever it was he was doing he jumped down and waved into the saloon, shouting: "Está bien!"

The camera started lowering and spinning slowly around the man. "Garrafal!" he said. The others smiled and patted him on the back.

"Excuse me?" Frank said to them. They turned in his direction. "Hi, I'm Frank Hardy...do you have a moment?"

The camera guy shrugged. "I guess so."

"I want to ask you a few questions concerning your director?"

"Which one?"

"Both really."

"Okay."

"Where were you the morning Salvatore Elina was kidnapped?" Frank began.

"I was here," the man was in in earlier twenties, tall and slim but still muscular. His thick auburn hair matched his tanned skin and dark brown eyes.

"When did you arrive at work?"

"About 8:30."

"Doing what?" Joe asked.

He shrugged again. "What I usually do. You know, stucking stuff, fixing stuff..." He looked at the brothers, "I have no reason, whatsoever, to kidnap Salvatore. He was so much better than Belson."

"Why?" Frank asked.

"Well, he isn't a bad guy, really. But he's just so tight up all the time, I understand that, I mean I'd be freaking out too if I had to take over the direction two weeks before the contest."

"Naturally," Frank commented.

"Look, I'm just a zero here. I don't control anything, I just follow orders. Last Saturday, Belson came and told us Elina wouldn't be arriving today so he'd be in charge, then the head of the department said he'd take over the directing until Mr. Elina got back."

"And how's he been doing?"

"Belson? Just fine. Like I said, tight up, but he's got some of Mr. Elina's notes and he's done it before...it would have been much worse if it was the week of the contestants arrival."

"They're coming after less than a week, correct?"

"Yes, we are supposed to finnish up here today so the opening and interval acts can be rehearsed before they come. They will need the stage the entire week."

"Then I won't waste more of you're time, thank you."

"You're welcome," the man turned back to his work.

"Well, that didn't do so much," Joe said.

"The guy didn't know a thing about this," Frank said and shook his head.

"Something tells me no one here does," Joe murmured.

A small group of people were sitting in a circle on the floor, the 'E' of the eurovision logo in the middle. It was about 5 feet high. A redheaded girl, 18-20 years old, was screwing light bulbs into it.

Frank motioned for Joe he could do the questionings.

"Pardon me?"

A guy with the same haircolour as the girl, about the brothers age turned to look at them. "Yes?"

"I'm Joe and this is my brother Frank, we're investigating Salvatore Elina's disappearance. Do you mind if I asked a few questions?"

The guy watched them suspiciously. "_You_ are investigating?"

"Yeah, got a problem with that?" Joe said, sounding a bit more harsh than he meant to.

Frank sighed, thinking: _Here goes..._

"Just answer the questions you're given, Ramón," an unexpected stern voice came behind the brothers.

Ramón stared stubbornly at the green-eyed man. "Está bien, senor West," he broke the eye contact.

Frank looked thankfully at Bill who grinned back and blinked his right eye.

"Where was I?" Joe said, "Oh, yes -when's the last time you saw Mr. Elina?"

"Monday night, when we were going home from work," Ramón replied and glanced at Bill who was standing close enough to hear but watching the cameras in the ceiling move around.

"Did he seem distracted or nervous or anything?"

"Nope, just calm and cool as always," Ramón was still glaring hatredly at Bill.

"When was the last time you saw Steven Belson before Mr. Elina went missing?" Frank cut in.

"At the same time as senor Elina."

The girl had finnished her task and the people around her helped her carrying the 'E' towards the stage to put it in it's place.

"What is it with you and Bill?" Joe asked, noticing the provoking look Bill sent Ramón and it was starting to irratate him very much how Ramón's eyes could never be still, either glaring at Bill or at the girl who was now climbing up a huge ladder to fix the letter to the wall.

"What do you mean 'what's with us'?" Ramón hissed.

"You just don't seem to get along..."

"I hate him, he's a pain in the ass -I mean -not literally, of course!" Ramón quickly added, "But it's real disturbing the way the looks at you sometimes, makes me shiver," he whispered.

"I think I know where you're coming from," Joe said but not loud enough for the guy to hear.

"Well, we've got a lot to do, right now, but maybe we can talk later," Frank said pulling his brother away and whispering into his ear, "Let dad handle this one."

A woman's scream echoed through the saloon, followed by a terrible noise of metal crashing against metal and glass shattering all over.

The Hardy brothers and Bill sprinted towards the fallen ladder on the stage, Ramón was ahead of them, fearfully sceaming: "Claudia!"

_**You know what to do...I just hope there aren't many errors but, hey, give me a little break here...**_


	4. 4

**Well, in that case, Branwen -thanks a lot (light-headed grin)! But you totally blew my cover there, the spanish is only for the looks(and does look good), I don't have a clue if I'm doing it right but no one has said anything yet, that's good...**

**Liz thank you too. There won't be so much of backstage scenes but you can pick at those there may be, when they come, it isn't that much of a problem, or what...?**

**Chapter 4**

Fenton, Steven and Maggie came running from the backstage, going pale at the sight.

Broken glass everywhere, the stage floor broken at three places -and lots of blood, the blood was spitting out of Claudia's broken leg. The bone came through the skin just under the knee and unfortunately she hadn't lost consciousness. She cried and yelled in pain and her body was shaking tremendously.

"Someone call 911!" Frank shouted.

Maggie actually took a moment just to roll her eyes before dialing the spaninsh emergency number from her cell phone.

Ramón was kneeling beside his sister, afraid to touch her but he mumbled hystericly in spanish, saying everything would be all right, whether to convince her or himself...suddenly he fainted and collapsed (the fall wasn't high, he was sitting).

20 minutes later an abulance with it's wailing sirens took the siblings to a hospital. The crew and staff were in shock.

Steven strode back and forth, chewing on his fingernails to the skin. He didn't stop until Bill grabbed his arm and literally held him still. After a few seconds he had gained most of his self control.

"Back to work!" he hissed and glanced at Fenton. The two of them went back to the haliway followed by Bill.

The guys in the stage crew dug their hands into their hair and looked sadly at the wrecked stage. "Oh, maldición..." one of them cursed, Frank and Joe knew him back as the first guy they had questioned, the one who was working with the camera in the ceiling.

"Well, I...I guess we had better start cleaning up here..." Joe said.

Maggie put her arms around the stage guy from behind. "Let's take a tiny little break, huh?" she said, "Come on, Marco, you have a smoke?"

Marco tilted his head to the side to look at her. "We were supposed to finish the stage today and now we'll never finish in time for the show," he said bitterly.

"It'll work."

"Yeah, with a miracle, it will."

"No, by getting started it will," Frank said and jumped up on the stage.

"Beware of the glass," someone warned him.

"Get off the stage, Frank!" Fenton's voice came from the saloon's entrance. Frank obeyed, not too eagerly though. Fenton, Steven, Bill, José Moneo and four more police officers came to the stage. The cops went on the stage to take a closer look at the ladder Claudia had fallen from.

Steven looked over his crew that had gathered by the stage. "As you've probably all figured out by now, you will have to do an overtime -over-night-time, really..."

Nobody said anything. Like he said, they all knew. It was their third thought. After _'what the hell happened'_ and _'is she alive?'_

Steven forced a smile on his face. "Hey, cheer up, it'll raise your salaries."

People actually chuckled a little at this.

"Call home, let your families know, you'll be staying all night and tomorrow. Take a nap somewhere if you need it," Steven instructed.

"Is one day gonna make any difference?" Marco asked.

"I don't know, if not, then I guess we'll be here next night too," the director said.

"Garrafal," the young Spaniard grumbled.

"Well, let's get started now," Steven ordered, softly, then he turned to Frank and Joe, "Listen, lads, I hope it's not to much asking...but could you do me a wee little favor and take the place of my two lost crew members?" he asked. "I will add your salaries to the account. And it's very convenient for you, you can question the crew and get to know the people and...-"

"No problem!" Joe cut him off, "I'm sure it'll be fun."

"Oh, thank you! You don't know how much it means, every person can make a difference...-"

Fenton and the cops came down from the stage. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the ladder," Fenton said to his sons.

"So it wasn't sabotage?" Joe said.

"Maybe she just tried to reach too far and fell," Frank said.

"We will have to ask her that when she's out of surgery," sergeant Moneo said.

A woman in her mid thirties came walking towards them. "Pardón, senor Belson, the media is already outside, they must have seen the ambulancia leave," she said to Steven.

He sighed. "Thank you, Catrina," he said to the woman, "I'll handle them." He put up a determined expression and headed to the haliway.

The police took the ladder with them to the station and once they were gone the staff began cleaning the mess, the Hardys and the Wests helped along.

Joe looked up and wiped the sweat from his forehead while he was sweeping glass in a pile on the stage. "At least that 'E is still in it's place, imagine if it would have come down on the top of her."

Frank was on his knees just under the logo, wiping blood off the floor. He looked up as well. "No, Joe, I'd rather not imagine that," he said glumly.

The entire day, the whole night and next day, peolpe worked their butts of to finish the work there needed to be done. New glass tiles were put on the floor, the broken lights in it were fixed and the eurovision logo with it's neon lights was stucked properly. The settle rows became sleeping benches. While working mostly with Maggie and Marco Vélez, the Hardys brothers went around asking their questions about the other director's disappearance but they gained no sucess. The hosts, a known tv show director and a singer, and the opening and interval acts, started rehearsing over the weekend.

Finally late on Wednesday night all the trash was scooped up and thrown away, the lights and cameras were tested, the foremost settle rows were stripped of the plastic cloths, the contestants were arriving after five days. And nobody was any closer to Salvatore Elina.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Before going to work on Thursday morning, Steven bought a bouqet of flowers and went to the hospital to visit Claudia and Ramón Richardo.

Ramón had been released the day of the accident but he hardly left his sister for one minute since then.

She was in a private room. Her leg was in a cast and rested on a big pillow. Ramón was sitting in an armchair beside the bed.

Steven knocked on the door and poked his head inside. "Hola?"

Claudia smiled. "Hola!"

Steven entered the room and laid the floweres in her lap. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, my leg hurts like hell but I'll live," she said, "So you can stop feeling guilty," she added, "It wasn't your fault."

Fenton, Frank and Joe came into the room and heard her last words. "What exactly happened?" Fenton asked.

"Well, I was trying to finish the logo and I had to reach to screw the 'E' tight but then I tangled my foot in the ladder and I fell," she explained."

"Why? You think it's got something to do with Mr. Elina?" Ramón asked quietly.

"Perhaps not. The police has been analysing the ladder, there's nothing wrong with it," Fenton said.

"Because I was being clumsy and fell, and that's it!" Claudia stated.

"But I still feel I am responsible..." Steven started.

"Trust me, you're not."

"Okay, okay, if you say so..."

"When will you be released?" Joe asked.

"After a few days, in time for the semi-finals," Claudia replied and smiled at him.

"That's great!"

"Yeah it is," she looked back at Steven, "How about senor Elina?"

Steven shook his head. "No, nothing and no more threat notes since the protest the other day."

"Then I guess it was the Lebanese supporters, huh?" Ramón commented.

"Probably."

"The truth is, we've come to a dead end, there's absolutely _nothing_ to go by," Fenton said, "Sergeant Moneo told me that the Lebanese had been sent back to their homes."

"Oh, good, 'cause I couldn' t do with more of that, I've been so stressed lately and everything is going wrong and...-"

"Don't freak out, we managed to finish the stage and the saloon is ready," Joe comforted.

"Did I mess the stage up really badly?" Claudia asked.

"Don't worry, we've fixed it, you just relax and get better," Steven assured, he looked at his watch, "Maybe we should get going."

"Okay, thanks for coming!" Claudia said as they left the room.

"Bye!" the brothers voiced.

"Well, she looks fine," Fenton commented in the car on the way to the concert hall.

Steven nodded. "Yeah, thankfully."

Joe was sitting in the passeger seat, he turned on the radio and a rock-styled song in spanish with some latino flavours was tuning. He hummed with it, not knowing the lyrics.

"You like the song?" Steven asked.

"Yeah, I do," Joe answered.

"It's the spanish entry for the contest," Steven informed.

"It's good."

"I know."

Frank leaned forward in the back seat. "Hey, Steven, tell me something about the contest in general."

"Like what?"

Frank shrugged."Something, how did it all begin?"

"Well, there was a song competiton in Italy, called San Reno Festival, that's where the idea of the Eurovision Song Contest was born. The first contest was held in 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland. Then only seven countries participated. Then the competiton wasn't split in two, the first time a semi-final was held was in 2004 when so many countries enterd. Back then the performances weren't judged by televoting, of course, but by an "expert" jury who awarded the performers with 1-10 points. The televoting didn't begun until 1998. The rules have been changing forever since then, somtimes the songs can be sung in any language the performer chooses, it is like that today, but there have been years when they could only be sung in the language of the country which the performer is representing. From the beginning more and more nations have participated. You see, they began 7 and now we're close to 40," Steven stopped at a red light,

"The rules of the competiton, for your information, are: A song can't be longer than about 3 minutes, the maximum number of performers on stage is 6, there must be a vocal in the song -never instrumental only- and all vocal must be performed live -you see, since 1999 we've used recordings of the songs but until then there were actually live big bands playing-," he stepped on the accelerator at the green light, "A performer can only represent one country in a contest. A song cannot have been offically published before the contest and can not be comercially available too far in advance of Eurovison..."

"Wow...this is more complicated than I thought," Joe said.

"But who has ever gained something from eurovision...I don't believe I've heard of anyone..." Frank said.

Steven nearly lost control of the car in sheer shock. "What do you mean! Lads, who _hasn't_ heard of ABBA? Or Celine Dion! The Shadows? Olivia Newton-John...?"

"ABBA won in 1974, with _Waterloo_," Fenton said, proud of himself and his good memory. He was an old fan of the Swedish stars.

"Well, okay, I've heard of those but ...-"

,"Isn't that enough, those are huge names!" Steven said enthusiasticly.

"But Celine Dion is Canadian, Canada isn't part of the EBU, is it?" Frank finnished.

"Nothing says an artist has to be born in the country he or she represents -but you're right, she is indeed Canadian, she participated for Switzerland in 1988 with a song called 'Ne partez pa sans moi'."

"_Don't leave without me_?" Fenton translated.

Steven nodded.

"So those are the only _grand_ success in the-more-than-fifty-years-history of the competition? Four?" Frank asked.

"Well, the _most_ grand, for sure, but, it sounds to me you define 'grand' as something that reaches USA, some are just fine with being famous in Europe or even in their own country, you know...?" Steven clarified.

They were now at the concert hall. Steven parked the car and the four went inside.

The hosts -the male television program direcor and the lady singer -were practicing their lines on the stage. The man spoke in english first and the woman translated in french. They stopped speaking when Steven approched and took a seat in the foremost row. "Keep going." They did.

The brothers chose a row in the middle and sat down. Joe sighed. "Man, this has to be the dullest case we've ever been on," he said.

"I consider that good, that means we're not in life threatning danger and I don't need to be saving your butt all the time," Frank said and smiled.

Joe rolled his eyes. "Excuse me, but I'm not choking in my laughter here."

Maggie came towards them. "Whzzup!" again she used that exaggarated accent that made the word sound like a hiss and annoyed Frank to death.

"Hi, Maggie. Nothing's up," Joe said poutingly.

"Me and Marco are going out for a smoke, you coming with us?" Maggie offered.

"No, thanks, not me," Frank declined.

Joe stood up. "Sure."

Frank followed his brother and his companions out the door with his eyes, not wanting his little brother to get into trouble with 'the gruesome twosome' as he had reccently started calling the couple, Maggie and Marco, getting the idea from a Simpson's show (**_Homer gave Marge's sisters that title_**). Then he decided he oughta trust his brother a little better and turned his eyes to the stage.

Joe, Maggie and Marco went off the concert hall's property, to Marco's red convertible across the street.

"I take it the case isn't going very well," Maggie said.

"It isn't going at all," Joe corrected.

"So I guess good old step-dad is just gonna have to handle the show."

"There's still one week to go," Marco said, lightening a cigarette.

"Yeah, but even if they found Salvatore in that time, he still wouldn' t be able to start again in the middle of the artists week."

Marco shrugged. "Why not? Belson is using most of his concepts for the performances."

Maggie shook her head defeatingly. "Whatever," she waved the subject off and offered Joe a cigarette, which he politely denied.

Maggie watched him thoughtfully. "You're kinda nice fella, aren't you?" she said. Joe wasn't sure wheather she was mocking him or what until she added, "Which is weird, 'cause your'e so goddamn cute."

Joe kept himself from blushing and grinned widely.

Marco looked at them. "Get a room," he joked. Joe had the feeling he was a bit jealous.

A taxi pulled up at the concert hall and a seemingly very grumpy Bill stepped out of it and hurried inside.

Maggie had been quick hiding the cigarette behind her back but he didn't turn. She shook her head. "Dad must have overslept," she said to herself, "We should go back inside." She sprayed a mint spray into her mouth.

Just when they were going in, Fenton and Frank came running outside. "Get in the car,Joe!" Fenton said on his way to Steven's sedan, "Mrs. Elina called, her husband called her!"

_**The little lore corner:**_

_**Memorable names in Eurovision: ABBA (Waterloo, Sweden 1974), Céline Dion (Ne partez pas sans moi, Switzerland 1988), Olivia Newton-John (Long live love, UK 1974), The Shadows (Let me be the one, UK 1975), Lara Fabian (Croire, Luxemburg 1988), T.A.T.u. (Ne ver', ne'bojsia, Russia 2003), Mary Hopkin (Knock, knock, who's there? UK 1970). **_

_**Others: Cliff Richard, Johnny Logan, Edyta Górniak, Gina G, Julio Iglesias, Vicky Léandros and many, many more. **_


	5. 5

_**Please note, I have a very limited knowledge of technics (such as telephone technology) so I must really just use my imagination...so please don't flip... **_

**Chapter 5**

The Hardys ran up the three stone steps to the front door of Elina's home (which had no front porch as the ideal american house). Just as Frank was about to knock, Mrs. Elina swept the door open and threw herself at Fenton and cried and mumbled senselessly in a mixure of spanish and english. Fenoton embraced her comfortingly and guided her back into the house and tried to get her to calm down.

Her daughter was standing in the hallway looking confused.

"What's your name?" Frank asked her gently.

"Sara," she answered.

"Sara, can you go and get your mommy something to drink" he asked slowly to make sure she understood him.

She nodded and went into the kitchen.

Fenton made the stressful woman sit down in the living room, then sat beside her and told her to try to relax and breathe normally.

When she managed that at last, Sara came into the room and handed her mother a small wineglass filled with redwine and the usually calm and well-balanced woman downed it in one sip and gave the glass back to the girl, incating she wanted more.

"Now, senora, if you'd please tell me what happened..." Fenton pleaded.

Mrs. Elina took a deep breathe. "Well, I was just going to work when the telephone rang and when I answered it Salvatore's voice came through and he said that he was all right and he hadn't hurt him and he had excaped but he was lost and then he said he had to go because he was coming and somebody said something and he yelled and then there was just a...a porrazo- a...-a... -a thump! And then the line went dead."

Her eyes started watering again and she downed the second redwine glass that Sara had just brought her.

"Do you remember when exactly he called?" Fenton asked.

"Just before I called you," she said.

"That's about 10 a.m."

"Well, at least we know now he's a alive, that's good, right?" Joe said reassuringly and patted on her shoulder.

"At least we know he _was_ alive _this morning_," Frank emended.

Joe sent his brother an evil glare as she started crying again. Sara sat on the arm of the couch and put her arm around her mother, she looked quizzically at Fenton.

"Let's look at the bright side, now we know it's a _He_, that kidnapped your husband," Joe said.

"Oh, Joe, for Chist's sake, be realistic!" Frank said.

"Why don't you try to be a little optimistic for a change?"

"Boys!" Fenton cut in sternly, "This is not the time nor place for arguments! Try and behave!"

The brothers blushed, shameful. "You're right...I'm sorry," Frank apologized.

Joe remained quiet and pouted.

Fenton sighed and decided to ignore his son's childish behaviour for now. He looked back at Mrs. Elina. "Look, here is what we're gonna do: We'll contact the telephone services and have them trace the call and if they can, we'll go there and search the area," he paused, then continued when she nodded, "But -you must understand -I can't promise anything."

She nodded again and wiped the tears off her cheek.

The front door was slammed and Raoul stormed in. "Mamá?" he confusingly looked at his tearing mother and then at Fenton, "What is going on?" he demanded.

Fenton explained that to him. -"And now you must take care of your mother and sister, we should get started. We'll let you know if we find something," He stood up and laid a hand on Mrs. Elina's shoulder. "We'll do our best," he promised. That was the only thing he could promise.

Fenton called José Moneo from the car as he doubted it big time that the telephone services employees would do anything unless being flashed with an offical bagde.

The telephone services quarters were not so far away from the police station so Moneo was already there when the Hardys came.

They found their way to the director's office on the third floor and after some explainations and requests, the Hardys, Moneo, his chief who's name was Serafin Civera, and the company's director went down to the second floor where people were working in separated booths, wearing headphones, speaking into the attached microphones in spanish (mostly), pushing buttons, scrolling up and down on their screens.

The director took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and sat down at one of the computers, taking the mission himself. First he typed in Elina's name and found their home number, then he pulled up a file with all calls to the number. "When was the call made?" the man asked with a strong spanish accent.

"About 10 o'clock, 9:45, maybe," Fenton replied.

"Nine fifty-three?"

"Possibly."

The director traced the call, the computer went through loads of numbers then finally stopped. "It's a teléfono público -a pay phone ," he said, he rolled his chair to another computer where he got a map of the city. "Aquí!" he said and pointed with the mouse on the screen.

"Sí, I know where it is," José said, already on his way downstairs.

"Gracias," Fenton said and hurried after Moneo.

The three Hardys went into Steven's car and followed the police car for about fourty minutes, they ended up in an apartment house neighbourhood, surely not the most attractive one. The police car parked at the side of the street by one of the blocks and Fenton behind.

"I guess I needn't ask how you're familiar with the neighbourhood," Fenton said dryly, once they'd exit the cars.

Moneo nodded knowingly.

There was trash all over the snug streets, the blocks hadn't been painted in ages, vulgar and ugly graffiti on some of them. Even some windows were broken, the pieces of glass were on the sidewalk, and there, on a street corner was a phonebooth.

The last one who had used it, hadn't hung up and the handset dangled loose in the cord. There was solidified blood on the glass inside. Chief Civera sighed and ordered his men to take fingerprints and an exsample of the blood.

The Hardys were snooping around, trying to eye some sort of a clue. Frank begun at the phonebooth, there was a drop of blood on the ground -and another -and another -leading away from the booth. Frank followed the trail to a basement window with a broken glass. Then he went to the block's front door and read on the doorbells.

"Dad!" he shouted, "I think I got something!"

His father looked up and ran to him and Joe was on his heels.

"What?" Joe asked excited.

"Look," his brother pointed at the doorbells, "Recognize something?"

Joe searched, then his eyes widened. "Josef Marco Vélez -Marco Vélez!"

Fenton called Moneo and told him about Frank's finding and then who Marco Vélez was. "I know we really don't have enough on him but maybe we could keep an eye on him?"

Moneo thought for a while. "I'll ask cabeza Civera."

"Please do."

Frank and Joe went back to the broken basement window, squatted and peeked inside. There was dust and junk, like fast food wrapping and mouldy old newspapers, the naked walls of concrete were moist. And then there was a chair. One chair under the window and slashed ropes. The brothers looked at each other.

"Well, he isn't here anymore," Joe said and took a closer look at the window, the glass had been painted with black painting, so nobody could have seen anything through it.

"Not in the basement, no -but maybe still in the building," Frank said.

"After nearly escaping? No."

-"Guess we'll find out if they get search warrant."

"But why? Why would Marco kidnap his director, who he seems to like better than Steven...?" Joe was fustrated.

"If he kidnapped him, he doesn't mean what he's been saying, Joe," Frank said.

"Oh, really?" Joe wryly, "Gee, Frank, I'm not five years old!"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Frank apologized.

"Yeah," Joe snorted, "Sure you are." He turned and started walking away.

"Joe?" Frank called after him, he didn't answer.

The older brother growled and ran after him and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Oh, come on Joe! Don't be childish," Frank immeadiately bit his tounge, "Joe, I didn't mean that, okay?"

"Now what?" their father shouted to them, sounding rather annoyed.

The brothers looked at each other. Then they turned back to the car.

"What was that about? What's with you today?" Fenton asked.

Joe just shook his head and got in the car.

"We're being stupid," Frank said simply.

"Ah...can you stop that?" his dad said just as simply, "Now, we're going to stirr up a bit in our friend, Marco -check his reactions -and Civera promised a nice little Shadow on him."

Frank nodded. "Sounds good."

"Yeah...and since it's the only thing we got in our hands we'll just have to wait."

"Well, let's get going," Frank got into the car.

After exchanging a few words with Moneo and Civera, the Hardys went back to the concert hall.

Steven came rushing towards them when they entered the building. "What happened?" he demanded.

"We kinda got a lead," Fenton said, "But it isn't very solid."

"Meaning?" the director inquired.

"Meaning it may be a coincidence," Frank replied.

"As much as we don't believe in them, this might be one," Joe added, his bad mood long gone. If there was action in the game, he would focus and try to make himself useful, while he despised sitting back and not knowing what to do.

Steven looked confused "Ah! Right," he shook his head, "I don't follow here..."

"Have you seen Marco?" Joe asked, heading inton the saloon.

"The last time I saw him, he was going backstage...why?"

"We need to talk to him," Frank said.

"Okay, I'll call him," Steven pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt.

"No, no, we'll go find him," Fenton said and followed his sons then he noticed Steven's blank face, "I'll bring you up to date as soon as I can, okay? I promise."

The three investigators went up a long hallway, leading from the haliway behind the stage to the dressingrooms and the green room.

They found Marco in the green room where he and his group of the crew along with Maggie where setting up a big screen in the green room, where the contestants would later sit and chew their finger nails while watching the point administering.

"Hey, what's going on, fellas!" Maggie asked when she saw them, "Where'd you go this morning?"

"Marco, can we talk to you?" Fenton asked solemnly, "Alone, please?"

Marco looked surprised but followed them to one of the dressing rooms. Joe closed the door behind him and leaned against is with his arms crossed over his chest and peered menachingly at the young Spanyard.

Marco glanced at him uncertain. "What's going on?"

"I believe we found where your ex-director has been imprisoned," Fenton said, still in that cold solemn tone.

"You found him?" Marco's eyes widened.

"No...someone found him before us," Frank said.

"Oh...um, why are you telling me this?" Marco asked, his dark eyes flickered from one Hardy to another.

"Because," Fenton looked into his eyes, "The place is suspiciously close to your apartment..."

Marco swallowed nervously. "Look...I did not kidnap senor Salvatore, why should I?"

"You tell us," Frank said.

"I didn't - do - it. I was here at the time, I couldn't have."

"Well, maybe you had a co-worker," Joe suggested and straightended himself with arms still crossed.

Marco looked at each of them, lost for words before he stormed out of the room.

Joe was about to go after him when his dad grabbed his shoulder. "Let him go," he said, "Let's see _where_ he goes."

Then they spent about an hour helping the crew getting the green room ready, 'cause as Fenton had suspected, Marco didn't return to his work.

Just as they were finishing Maggie, who had left when the Hardys were talking to Marco, came in and asked: "Does anyone know where Marco is? His convertible is gone and he won't answer his cell phone..."

_**As usually, please review (whether you like this or not)!**_


	6. 6

_**Mmmm...! It gives me such thrills when someone reads my stories, a wonderful feeling but -damn! I knew I was pushing my luck with the whole spanish , putting it there when I don't speak it (but I just love the language!)...but obviously readers do, so keep correcting me, that's how I learn : P...**_

_**Juanita, I pretty much managed to understand that review, but please, review in english, there is a reason why I only use one-word words (blah!) when I use it in the story, ok? (it was a BIG jump to put 'cabeza' in the middle of the sentence (blush)...) **_

**_Speaking of blushing -nancy drew -they blush? And I didn't even notice...hmm? I'll try to keep it down in the future though but I'll have to let you down on one thing 'cause believe me, if I would have put Nancy Drew in there you would have begged me to take her out...about Eurovision, I've tried to explain in pieces through the story what it is but if you want a good, studious explaination I advise you (and everyone) to go to triple w. wikipedia'dot'org(I can't put the exact address in, don't know why) and search for 'Eurovision Song Contest' (it helped me to explain in the story)._**

**Chapter 6**

"Moneo."

"It's Fenton."

"Oh! I was just about to call you. What's going on?"

"Mr. Vélez left the building, your chief agreed to have someone follow him..."

"Yes, he did...let me check it out...oh, Fenton, by the way, I checked Vélez's file, he holds a record for petty heist and storage and ingestion of marijuana and cocaine, this was a few years back but I thought I'd let you know..."

"Thanks. Where is he now?"

"Let me see...," after a few seconds he said,That's odd."

"What is?"

"He's at senor Elina's house."

"What!"

"Sí...I don't know why..."

"Maybe I should go over there and have a little chat with them."

"Won't he be suspicious?"

"No, I promised Mrs. Elina I'd let her know, anyway, it'll look like a coincidence, no worries."

The sergeant sighed. "All right, but you'd better not mess anything up."

"I won't. I know what I'm doing."

"Fine. But meet our shadow first. He'll be disguised as a passed-out drunk somewhere. His name's Miguel Quierra."

"All right. I'll get back to you."

"Good. Adiós."

They hung up.

"Where is he?" Joe asked.

"At Elina's," his father answered.

"Why?" Frank asked.

"We're gonna go and find out."

They went from the backstage to the stage, where the hosts were rehearsing, and crept quietly to the saloon and found Belson at a front row watching the hosts.

"Can I borrow your car? Again?" Fenton asked since they had ridden with Steven to work.

Steven didn't take his eyes off the stage but nodded his consent.

"Dad, I was thinking, " Frank said in the car, "Would Mrs. Elina have any motive to harm her husband? We have no proof he ever left the house."

"That doesn't make sense, if she would have a motive, she would have killed him, not kidnapped him," Joe said before their dad could answer.

"You both have points, but we do have a proof. Remember, she said his car had been in the parking lot so he must have been kidnapped there," Fenton reasoned.

"Exactly. She might have had an assistant who could have driven the car to the concert hall to point the attention else where," Frank reasoned back.

Fenton rubbed his chin and thought of some logic to go against this. "But why keep him alive?"

"Maybe she didn't. If she had an assistant, they could have faked that phone call this morning."

"Why?"

"I don't know. To keep up the act?"

"Jesus, Frank. This theory is making a whole lot of sense. Why didn't _I_ come up with it?"

Frank smiled and patted his father on the shoulder. "You're getting too old...besides, it's only a theory."

"Well, if we could just find a motive, it would work," Fenton said, a new energy flowing inside him.

He parked outside the villa. Behind Marco's red convertible.

"What was the guy's name again?" Frank asked, meaning the man who was shadowing Marco.

"Erm...Miguel something," Joe said.

"Quierra. Miguel Quierra," Fenton remembered. He was startled when someone knocked on the window.

It was a black-haired man, maybe thirty. He wore old rags, his hair was a mess and brown his eyes were swimming very dramaticly.

"Got a penny for the poor man?" he said, with even more exaggerated british accent than Maggie did with the Afro-American one when Fenton pushed the button that opened the window. Then he held out his hand to Fenton and said with a normal voice and a slight spansih accent. "Corporal Miguel Quierra, sergeant Moneo told me to expect you, senor Hardy."

Fenton shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"As you see, senor Vélez hasn't moved a centimetre..." Quierra shrugged.

"Well, we're going to talk to him and see if that won't change, " the Hardys stepped out of the car.

"Está bien, you'll just shout if you need help."

"We will."

They ran up the steps and knocked. Mrs. Elina came to the door, she looked surprised. "Back already?" she asked, "Marco told me what happened."

,You know each other?" Fenton asked sourly.

"He's my nephew," she looked confused.

"Well, you sure as hell failed to mention that," Joe said angrily to Marco as they enterd the kitchen where he was sitting.

Having heard the conversations, Marco seemed ashamed. "I didn't realize it was relevant, okay?"

"He didn't realize...!" Joe broke off and bit his lip in frustration.

"Why did you run off?" Fenton asked.

"I...I just panicked. I knew you'd start dig in the files, find out about the robbery and all that..." Marco shook his head miserably.

"And the best thing to do was to take off?"

"I wasn't thinking right, I just wanted to get out of there."

"And why come here?" Frank questioned.

"I have nowhere else to go, aunt Esperanza has taken care of me since..." Marco stopped and looked down.

His aunt stroke his hair. "His mother died 8 years ago, he was only fifteen. He started using drugs and he had to steal to get money for them. So finally I took him off the street and got him an apartment..."

"I was a kid, a stupid kid!" Marco said, "But I'm fine now and I wouldn't do anything to Slavetore."

"Marco and Salvatore are friends, he shouldn't be suspected," Mrs. Elina said.

"Well, senora, you must understand that we have to observe every option, " Fenton said, _including you._

"Do you think he's alive?" Esperanza asked, obviously talking about Salvatore, seemingly worried.

"I don't know," Fenton said.

"What about life insurance?" Frank asked in the car, they were going to the police station.

"No, then she would have put the body somewhere to be found or she couldn't claim the insurance money," Joe declared.

"Joe's right, Frank," Fenton said, thoughtfully scratching the back of his head.

"Besides, then she would not have faked the phone call," Joe added.

"He's still right."

Frank sighed defeatingly. "All right, then you two come up with some ideas."

"But if he was cheating on her?" Joe suggested.

"That's "a classic" motive," Fenton said dryly as he parked at the police station where he was going to ask chief Civer to put out another shadow, on Esperanza Elina.


	7. 7

**Eeek! I'm _so _excited, Eurovision is in four days and I can't wait! Pray with me that Selma, the icelandic competitor, will make it to the finals (she's already competed before, in 1999, and she became second, that was amazing)! Ok, now I bragging, I'll stop, but before, since I'm already starting to advertise here: Eurovision 2005 will be broadcasted live on next thursday and saturday on www . eurovision . tv**

**Well, on with the story!**

**(nancy drew, I'm afraid Nancy will not be here...I don't like her that much and other people have asked me to take her out before so...**

**bwca, the squiggle doesn't work in my computer with other letters, don't know why)**

**Chapter 7**

Monday morning.

The first planes carrying the Eurovision Song Contest's competitors were landing.

Over the weekend thousands and thousands of eurovsion fans had arrived in Madrid from all over the world. The madness was starting to show in the afternoon traffic.

The way from the hotel to the concert hall took maybe thirty minutes early in the morning but it took about an hour to get back to the hotel at 5 p.m.

The schedule was the same for all contestants (only with different times): Rehearsal, press conference, break, reahearsal, break (party), straight-to-bed (whether that meant 10 p.m. or 3 a.m.).

The police had had shadows on Marco and Esperanza for a few days now. Nothing suspicous.

Miguel Quierra had reported to the Hardys on Sunday evening.

_"It's not them. Neither of them, " he had said, sounding tired._

_"What happened?" Fenton had asked._

_-"Nothing! That's just it. Vélez, he goes to work everyday, eats there, hangs out with West's daughter in break times, goes home...nothing. Senora Elina, she goes to work, she works at an estate agency, she picks her kid up from summer school or something and -Dios- they go to church and confess!" _

_Fenton had smiled at his annoyance. "Couldn't you talk to the priest and ask him what she was confessing? Because this may be a murder case."_

_"What do you think? Of course, you should have seen how he looked at me!" the corporal spat out._

So, again, they were at a dead end.

Monday morning. Nothing to do so the Hardys went with Steven to meet the contestants at the press tent.

The press tent was a giant, white tent that had been put on the concert hall's lawn, where the press conferences would take place. The lawn was crowded with journalists and other mass media. Armed security guards around the tent and and the concert hall were actually earning their money. A few of them became Belson's body guards when he stepped out of the car and the worked-up media showered him with questions and the flashes of the cameras stung the eyes. He held his head up high and gave _'no comments' _on both sides all the way to the tent.

Inside it, were about 300 people gathered, the competitors, song writers, managers, personal crews -other "accesory-people"- a few journalists, tour guides and numerous strong and fit looking men, that would become the competitors personal bodyguards. They all stood up and aplaudded when Steven entered the tent. There was a long table in front of the chair rows, which the people were sitting on, Steven sat in the middle and Bill on his right and another man who was a translator on his left. There were microphones on racks in front of them.

The Hardys stood in the tent's entrance and watched the crowd go silent and sit down as Steven cleared his throat and began speaking.

"First of all, I'd like to welcome you all to Spain," the translator translated in french as he went along, "I am Steven Belson and I will be your director this week...as you all know, the orignial direcor Mr. Salvatore Elina is missing at the moment and cannot attend to his work..." people nodded understandingly.

"But I hope we will be able to work together and make this a memorable eurovision song contest," he continued, "After a while you will be able to go to your hotels and settle down in your rooms and you will be accompanied by those fine gentlemen until the end of your staying...whether it'll be Friday or Sunday...then we will begin rehearsing, here in the concert hall, one by one group, where we will discuss your performances and you'll get a look at the stage and take one rehearsal, then there will be a press conference here, also one by one group. Then you'll have the rest of the day to yourselves and we'll begin flat out tomorrow morning, then we'll also begin with a rehearsal, then a press conference, another rehearsal and free-time, rehearsals will be in the exact order of the competiton's running order...further information you will find in this time-schedule that will be handed out now."

Maggie and a few other girls walked around and handed out booklets.

"If there is anything you need," Steven said, "You can get back to me. My cell phone number is on the schedule, or you can talk to Mr. William West, my nr. 1 assistant -who sits here on my right- or Mr. Martin Garcia who's on my left and is repeatng everything I say-, " the translator, Garcia, pointed at himself and said something in french and everyone laughed.

And to the Hardys surprise Steven added and pointed towards them, "Or you can even turn to Mr. Fenton Hardy and his sons."

All eyes turned towards them and the boys tried very hard to keep their face normal. Fenton, however, wasn't prepared for this and wasn't very happy since he didn't want any attention from the media.

"That was all for now," Steven looked over the multitude, "Any questions?"

Fenton sighed, knowing what was coming.

The journalists started shouting all at the same time.

"Please! One at a time," Steven begged, he pointed at one of them, "You."

"Mr. Belson, if Mr. Elina shall return within the next two days can he go back to directing?"

Steven shook his head. "No, probably not -but there's a chance we might co-direct as I'm using the lot of his work to guide me through my own."

"What are the chances he'll be found in time?" someone else asked.

"Let's just be faithful here and hope he will be."

"The police has ruled out the idea that Mr. Salvatore Elina was kidnapped by the Lebanese extreme supporting group that protested the participation of Israel in eurovision -um, are there any theories to who did kinap him," the third asked.

The Hardys mentally crossed their fingers and hoped Steven would just shut his mouth.

"We have people working on the case and you may be informed later how things evolve," Steven stood up and gathered his memo notes, closing the conference by doing so. Mr. Garcia translated the last sentence and stood up as well and so did Bill.

The body guards took their places on their sides and followed them to the concert hall.

The media left the tent and the competitors and their escort, including the body guards and guides, went to find their hotels.

Fenton took a deep breath before exiting the tent. He had taken cases in Europe, he was pretty well-known. He hated it.

As soon as he came out they were all over him and Frank and Joe too, they had also created a name for themselves in the continent.

The private detective was boiling inside, seriously fondling the idea of drawing his SW990L pistol and tell them all just to fuck off.

Frank seemed to read his father's face and wondered why everybody thought he and Joe were so unlike. They looked very much alike right now. Frank was a little amused.

They managed to squeeze their way into the concert hall without answering any questions. Fenton rushed into the saloon where Steven, Bill and Martin Garcia were checking over the stage for the final time.

"Was that necessary?" Fenton asked straight out.

Steven looked at him. "What?"

"To put the media on us."

Steven shrugged. "Most of them already recognized you, does it matter?"

"I whish you hadn't said that in front of the journalists," Fenton muttered.

"Well, done is done," Steven said, "But I'm sorry," he added.

"Don't worry about it, we'll handle it," Frank lightly brushed him off.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, it's just that this case is starting to bother me a lot," Fenton excused himself.

"I understand," Steven said.

"I'm gonna go and get smething to eat," Joe said, "That might clear my head."

"I'm coming with you," Fenton said, "Let's use the back door backstage, just in case..."

"Yup. Good idea, dad."

So the three Hardys sneaked out the backdoor and went to a small kiosk across the street where Marco usually parked his car in front of. They had themselves some snack.

"They'll keep someone watching Marco and Mrs. Elina, right?" Joe said while chewing his pizzaslice, it came nowhere close to Mr. Pizza's pizzas that an italian family, the Pritos, owned home in Bayport. The Pritos were good friends of the Hardys.

"I guess so," Fenton said. His cell phone rang in his pocket. He had his ear-piece on so he only had to push the answering button in the pocket.

"Hardy."

"Hola! It's Moneo," José's deep voice came through.

Fenton sighed. "Why do I feel like I haven't talked anyone else but you in ages?"

"Beats me, anyway, I finally got a hold of the basement's owner -he's been out of town- looks like senor Vélez has got nothing to do with this, the basement was rented by someone."

"Who?" Fenton asked, now all ears, and looked for something to write on.

"Someone named...um...Charles Bradstow."

"That doesn't sound very spanish. Have you located this man?"

"We're working on it."

"Will you let me know?"

"Sí. Can you come to the station sometime today?"

"Yeah, thanks," Fenton hung up, "Charles Bradstow, Charles Bradstow," he memorized.

"Who's that?" Joe asked.

"The man who's, at the moment, the most likely to have kidnapped Elina."

"They found him?"

"Not yet."

"Are we leaving?"

"In a while."

They went back to the concert hall, using the back door again.

The contestants and escort arrived back while the Hardys were gone and a few hundreds of people had gathered in the saloon, including some mass media, mostly from the national presses.

Steven stood in front of the crowd, with an earpiece-microphone on his head and a bunch of papers in his hands. "All right, people. Let's get started, " he said and searched the papers, "Bosnia & Herzegovina, you're up first, everybody else have a seat, please."

Everyone found a seat except four women in their early twenties, who took the stage. They were still in their travelling outfit but lined up in the middle of the stage and waited for Steven's signal.

"Whenever you're ready, Bill," Steven said into the microphone.

The up-tempo song began playing, mixed with east-european influences, a lot of fiddles and flutes but still a strong bass sound underneath and heavy drumbeat. The women sang it well but seemed uncertained about the movements since they'd never been on this stage before.

Everyone applauded when they finished.

"That was great!" Steven complimented, "Now you should go to the press tent, your conference will begin in a few minutes, we'll talk tomorrow morning." He looked at the papers again. "Up next is...Estonia!"

Three people came to the stage as the Bosnian jumped off it. The estonian lead singer was a girl who couldn't be much older than Joe.

"How old is that girl?" Joe asked as he watched her from the saloon's entrance.

"Dieciséis -she's sixteen," a voice came behind him.

"Hi, Catrina, " Joe greeted the receptionist, "Sixteen you say, wow, she must be really brave."

"Yeah, I can face the barrel of a gun and a bomb set on five minutes to explode -but this -I'd have a heart attack," Frank said admiringly.

Catrina nodded. "Sixteen is the lowest age for competitors."

Joe snorted. "I'm not surprised. How could a younger person ever handle the pressure?"

"Oh, it's not impossible," Catrina said, "There have been younger comptitors. People would often put children on stage maybe as backing vocals, back then the contest was judged by a jury, it would just melt them to see the children, they've even been lead singers, but in 1986 there was a 13 year old lead singer from Belgium and she won the contest. People thought that was just _too much_ and the minimum age was raised to 16."

"A thirteen year old kid?" Fenton said wide-eyed, "That is nuts!"

Catrina laughed, then shrugged. "Well, she did win...and there actually _is_ a contest for children, the junior euroviosin. Children from 7-15 compete in it, but of course it's nowhere near as big as the adult one."

Fenton shook his head. "Crazy europeans..."

The estonian song was a beautiful pop ballad, and the girl had a wonderful voice. The brothers got goose bumbs when she hit the high notes in the end.

When she and her backing vocals had left along with their crew, Steven called Russia to the stage.

Frank gasped, then he stared open-mouthed in awe at the russian contestant. Joe noticed and waved a hand in front of him. "Erm..Frank? Are you okay?"

"Joe, I've just seen the woman I'm going to marry," Frank said, still staring.

Joe looked at her. Sure, she looked good in the distance. Long, long dark hair, seemingly perfect body and smooth movements. The voice was an ok. The song was just a very cheap pop-song but the performance's target market was obviously males, the singer and four female backing vocals and dancers did their best to look and move very sexy.

"Maybe she doesn't look this good in a close-up, " Joe said.

"Is _this_ called music?" Fenton asked disbelieving.

"Some people don't have faith in the musical industry anymore," Catrina said and shook her head disapprovingly, "They will try to appeal to the audience with their sex appeal."

"It seems to be working on some..." Joe grinned at his brother's fossilised expression who didn' t even hear the comment.

Fenton shook his head as the song was finnishing. He grabbed Frank's shoulder. "Come on, lover boy, Steven is busy, let's go see José."

As they left, a Dutch boyband with members of four, was getting ready for their performance.

They met chief Civera at the station who told them Moneo was still interrogating but after a few minutes he and a middle-aged, bearded man came out of the iterrogation room. The man appeared to be very nervous.

"Well?" Joe asked impatiently.

"Gentlemen, this is senor Alvaro Algueró, owner of that basement where we believe senor Salvatore Elina has been held captive...now senor Algueró doesn't speak english but let me tell you what I've found out," Moneo said, "As I've already told you the man who rented the basement is Charles Bradstow, we've figured he is not a native."

"What does he look like?" Fenton asked.

"Senor Algueró never met him, if they communicated, they did through phone..." sergant Moneo said.

"How did he pay the rent?" Joe asked.

"Cash."

"_How?_" Joe repeated but meant something else.

José turned to the man and asked him in spanish. "He leaves an envelope with the money in the mailbox," he then translated the answer.

"What does his voice sound like?" Frank questioned.

José asked again and translated in english: "Deep, he says, with some foreign accent but he doesn't know where from."

"That leaves us with a deep-voiced male, probably a foreigner," Frank compiled.

"That's..." Joe pretended to count in his mind, "How many billions of suspects?" he then asked cynically.

Fenton asked whether Algueró had Bradstow's phone number but received a negative reply, Bradstow always called from a pay phone.

"He's either american or british," José thought aloud.

"Yeah, but they're everywhere in the world," Frank sighed defeatingly.

"He hasn't contacted since Thursday, has he?" Joe asked, expecting the 'No' which he got.

Algueró didn't know much about Charles Bradstow, he needed the money, he was too poor to ask questions.

"But he must have been there, just to put Elina there, feed him, if he did, or whatever, so someone _must_ have seen him," Fenton was getting desperate.

"Noone we've talked to," Chief Civera said.

All of them gave out a deep sigh from the bottom of their stomach.

Frank said what they were all thinking. "This is going nowhere."

**Keep in mind that I can only imagine how eurovision is prepared (and read contestants blog sites...) but since I wrote this chapter, I've learned (or got it confirmed) that contestants get to stay in the host country for a whole week, 7 days, in the story they only get 4-6 days (from monday to thursday or saturday). But it's a little late to correct it but now you know... **

_**The little lore corner:**_

_**- Sandra Kim sang 'J'amie la vie' in 1986(Iceland competed for the first time that year) and won, she said she was 14 years old when she really was only 13...there have been younger competitors (no one won except for her).**_

_**- The junior Eurovision was first held in Denmark 2003, then in Norway 2004 and will be in Belgium in November 2005, the junior esc is always much later than THE ESC which takes part in May. The winner's nation will not become next year's host in jr. esc as in "senior" esc(I have not seen any of the jr. esc as Iceland doesn't participate or broadcast the show). **_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Sorry, I haven't updated forever, it's just that my proofreader has been really busy and so have I but no big deal, a lot of wonderful stories added to the HB/ND section since last time.**_

_**Well, about eurovision (long passed event today -like six months ago...). To my dismay and annoyance, Greece won, performer Helena Paparizou with 'My nr. One' (quite a winning title, eh?), Iceland didn't make it to the final (it's ok, they sucked on the stage and the attires were hideous!), Norway did though, ending up in 9th place. They were my favourite -an old glam-rockband -and Iceland gave them 12 points. The funny thing is that the big four countries were all at the bottom, Spain, UK, France and Germany, that has never happened before, well, I didn't particularly like any of their songs...all right, enough about eurovision 2005 and on to the story...just a few messages first (getting a little old but still...):**_

_**Ice Maiden: Thanks for reading (and reviewing), just wait and see ;)**_

_**someone-who-did-not-leave-a-name-(?): thanks a lot!**_

_**nancy drew: thanks for still reading, you asked if eurovision was like American idol. Well, if that makes it easier to understand it -fine -but I personally don't like comparing those two, there is so much difference. Idol shows are singing/popularity contests where you get to know a lot of personalities (and weirdos;). Eurovision is a song/performance contest, also 45 years older or something, but while the european puplic judges there are so many things to consider. You know, politics play a huge role in eurovision. The biggest difference is probably that: Idol - individuals, Eurovision - whole countries.**_

_**caleb: thanks for taking the time to read and thanks(I think) for the...corrections? You know that the 'Someone-call-911' was just a humour thing, they always do that in the movies, come running, check pulse and shout:'He's alive!' or 'Someone call 911!' Guess it only works in the movies, huh? Since I read your review I found out that the icelandic word for 'corporal' is the closest meaning to a 'patrol man' (I'll use that in the future) but I don't know anything about these systems, I don't think they're this complicated here, there isn't even police where I live so... **_

_**ok, man, have I blabbered enough, and NOW on to the story...**_

**Chapter 8**

"It's fake!" it was about 7:30 in the evening. Fenton had contacted some people he knew, both in New York and SIS (**_more commonly known as MI6 or the Secret Service_**), since the Madrid police didn't have Bradstow's name in their database. Finally Fenton rushed into Moneo's office where Frank and Joe were waiting.

"We should have realized that long time ago, this guy is too clever to use his real name," Fenton said, a little pissed at himself, "There are three Charles Bradstows and they were all securely located, one in US and two in England."

"That's...that's great," Frank rubbed his forehead, "Back at square 1 then, huh?"

"I'm so sick of it," Joe growled.

Fenton snorted. "You think we aren't?"

"What are we missing here?" he began pacing back and forth, "We have a nick name, gender, a useless roomer...that's it!"

"Dad, stop! You're giving me headache," Joe said.

Fenton took a deep breath and stopped. "You know what? Aren't you guys tired, why don't you just go home and eat, relax or something..."

"What are you going to do?" Frank asked.

"A few more phone calls, maybe go and see Steven," his dad shrugged.

-"I'd like to go with you."

-"Yeah but look at your brother, he nearly asleep already. Wouldn't it be better if you'd go with him and..."

-"I don't need a baby sitter, thank you very much!" Joe cut in, "You can go with dad, Frank, I can take care of myself."

"Well, maybe I should go with you, Joe. I mean, you could just pass out behind the wheel..." Frank said.

"Nah, I'll grab a cab, you two take the car. See? Don't go creating more problems here, okay?" Joe stood up.

"Are you sure...?" Frank began.

-"Good night!" came from the hallway since Joe had already left the room.

"Let's get this business over with so you can go home too," José said.

Fortunately Joe had no troubles getting to the hotel.

When he got out of the elevator he noticed Maggie sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall next to the door of her room. She blew smoke, which she had inhaled from her cigarette earlier, out of her mouth at the 'NO SMOKING' sign on the opposite wall like she was trying to challenge it.

"Hi," Joe said and for once she was the one who was startled.

"Oh, Joe...hi," she sounded grumpy.

Joe sat beside her. "Need company?"

Maggie shrugged.

"Whatcha doing out here?" Joe asked.

"Three guesses," she answered.

-"You got locked out?"

-"Yup."

"Well," Joe turned his head to avoid the smoke, "Maybe you can use my key."

It turned out they couldn't. The locks weren't the same for some reason.

"I got another way, I'll let you in from inside," Joe said and entered his room.

"Wha-? Hey, Joe that isn't necessary, I-" Maggie started but he was already inside so he didn't hear her sigh and pull up her cell phone.

Joe couldn't find his lock picking tool anywhere in his bag. Then he got an idea. He went out on the balcony and climbed over to Maggie's balcony and was careful not to look down while he did it.

The balcony door had no lock. _They sure trust people around here. _He entered the room. He intended to straight to the door and let Maggie in but something caught his eye on the living room table...Joe felt a tickle in his stomach, was it his instincts telling him something?

Maggie finished her phone call and sat down again and leaned on the door with confusing thoughts swimming in her head.

Then all of a sudden Joe opened the door from inside and she fell backswards. "Ouch!" she glared up at Joe's face. He grinned apologeticly.

"Sorry," he pulled her to her feet.

"No worries," she mimicked his own words but added some sarcasm in them.

"Well, I'm going to get some sleep. I'm exhausted," Joe said and was about to leave when she grabbed his arm.

"Joe...couldn't you stay for a little while, until dad and Steven come home. I'd be very bored here all alone," she pouted and blinked seductively.

"Eh-hem..." Joe was clearly uncomfortable, "Look, Maggie, I'm _really_ tired, no fun to hang out with, seriously-"

-"Better than nobody."

-"But I..."

-"Why not?" she was beginning to sound harsh.

Joe's eyes hardened but he kept his tone polite.

"Like I said-" he started to move slowly out the door.

-"Bullshit!"

-"Fine, I don't trust you! That's why! Happy?" Joe blurted this out. He got himself ready to fight.

But Maggie just grinned nervously but with an evil gleam in her eyes she eased the hold on his arm.

"Yes, I'm happy."

Joe felt something heavy come down on his head from behind. He blacked out and fell.

"Phew! Way happy!"

Frank and Fenton chain-yawned in the car on their way back to the hotel at 11 a.m. Their researches hadn't made them any wiser and now all they wanted was a soft bed and some sleep.

They soon found out, though, they wouldn't be sleeping just yet.

"Joe! We're here!" Frank said when they entered the room.

His dad put a finger to his lips. "Shh! He's probably asleep." He crept to the brothers bedroom.

His stomach knotte up when he found it empty. "Frank!"

"Yeah?" Frank had picked a yogurt carton (expired yesterday) from the fridge to quiet his growling stomach.

"Joe," Fenton came to the kitchen, "He's not here."

Frank stiffened. "Are...are you kidding me. -Try his cell phone!"

Fenton did. It didn't answer. Fenton stroke his lower jaw nervously and looked at his son and they both sighed.

_What had Joe gotten himself into this time?_

Then Fenton had an idea. He called Steven.

"Hello?" Steven sounded tired, not strange after this long day of rehearsals and press fluster.

-"Hi, Steven, this is Fenton. Is there any chance Joe stopped by?"

-"Um, no. I haven't seen him since this morning. But I was just about to call you."

-"What?"

-"Ms. Arcens, Isabelle Arcens, our french contestant -we haven't seen her for a long time. She's not in the building, doesn't answer her mobile...She -I hate to say this -she's disappeared...and from your call I gather Joe's disappeared too."

There was silence while Fenton let the news sink in.

"Am I right?" Steven Belson asked.

"Yes," Fenton replied in a quiet tone.

-"Shit," Steven sighed deeply, "So, what are you going to do?"

Fenton leaned back and knocked his head against the wall. "Don't-have-a-clue."

Frank watched him, getting more and more worried by the second.

"Just...find them, please..." Steven hung up.

Fenton was physically exhausted but he wouldn't let himself to sleep before checking things out. The first thing he did was to let Chief Serafin Civera know about the newest problems. Then he told Frank about them and they started looking for leads in the room until they were joined by a few cops. The balcony door was open. Someone had capsized Joe's sport bag over the bed but Frank wasn't sure whether anything was missing. It was not a break-in because Frank's belongings were unmoved close to Joe's. He even could have done it himself.

"Damnit!" Frank was so frusterated and tired.

Fenton laid a hand on his shoulder. "You know what? If I stay up any longer my own yawns will tear my jaws apart. Let's try to sleep and start early tomorrow."

Frank just snorted and as he knew, neither of them slept much in the night.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

All very sleepy, Fenton, Frank, Steven and Bill met for breakfast early next morning.

"I'm not ready for this day yet," Steven said and rubbed his eyes.

Frank looked out the window and saw several people with cameras and dictaphones. "Me neither."

Bill looked at them too and mumbled: "Cannibals."

"We'll handle them," Fenton assured, then he looked at Frank, "We'll go and talk to the nearest hotel guests and the staff first, then we'll pay José a visit and then we go to the concert hall, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, " Frank finished his orange juice, which was all he had appetite for. He looked around. "Where's Maggie?" he asked Bill.

"Ah, she probably spent the night with Marco, they'll be at the concert hall, I'm sure," he answered.

Frank shrugged. "Well, can we get going then?" he asked his dad.

"Yes,we can," Fenton stood up, "We'll see you later today," he said to Bill and Steven.

The radio was turned on in the lobby and the news was being reported -a missing eurovision contestant. They didn't mention Joe and Fenton was thankful for that, although Ms. Arcens was under more time pressure, Fenton's prior conern was, naturally, Joe and he intended to find him as soon as possible. He and Frank went up to their floor and knocked on the door to their left.

A thin, young, hung over-looking woman came to the door. "Sim?"

Fenton swallowed. He didn't speak portugese. _Damn._ "Do you speak english?"

Though she seemed to understand the question she shook her head.

Fenton tried again. "¿Español?"

Then the woman smiled tiredly. "Sí."

Fenton sighed in relief, he introduced himself and then asked some questions.

The woman and her boyfriend had been out gallivanting last night and they came home at 3 a.m. No use in that.

Nobody aswered the door next to them nor those on the other side to Steven and Bill. They tried a few more. The floor seemed to be crawling with hung over out-goers.

Then they went to the lobby to find someone in the staff. After hour of questionings, Frank began to think Joe had been abducted by aliens or something. No one had noticed anything!

"This is so irritating! How can people be so blind?" he nagged.

"I have no idea," Fenton said, just as annoyed. He sighed, "Well, maybe the police has something."

"They'd better," Frank said.

As soon as they came out of the building the media hit them like a wave on rocks. But rocks don't give in to water so Fenton and Frank managed to get in the car and drive to the police station.

"Oh no," Fenton sighed when he saw there were also mass media outside the station. He parked the car and Frank took a deep breath before he got out of the car.

The media were of all nationalities in Europe and spoke, or shouted rather, in english, french and spanish, all in one and the volubility sounded like the world's biggest bee buzzing in Frank's ears.

Civera, Moneo, Miguel Quierra and a few other officers came out, threw one big: "No comment!" at the people and dragged Fenton and Frank inside.

"¡Maldición! This is crazy!" Quierra hissed once they were in Civera's office.

"Well, a eurovision competitor has never disappeared before...so they really have the right to go insane," Civera said.

"What about Joe?" Frank asked.

-"He _has_ disappeared before," Fenton kidded to his own surprise. The situation wasn't very funny.

Frank rolled his eyes but the police were serious.

"No, he's right, Fenton," José said, "I think that if we find Joe we will find senorita Arcens and the other way around."

-"And not to mention that if we find them we'll find Salvatore Elina," Fenton pointed.

"Let's hope so," the chief said.

-"I mean it's got to be connected some way."

-"Sí, no doubt about that."

"We've questioned the guys who were hired to be Arcens bodyguards," José said.

Frank looked at him. "Yeah?"

-"Well, just before her rehearsal, she needed to go to the toilet. They didn't think it was needed to follow her there because it's in the building -obviously -but she never came back from there...if she even ever made it there."

"So someone in the building must have kidnapped her, the place is well guarded," Miguel said.

"Maybe but not necessarily, the guards could have been bribed," Fenton said.

"Good point," Miguel admitted, sheepish for not thinking of it himself.

"Did you talk to them all?" Fenton asked the sergeant.

"I'm not sure. They were about 50, I don't know how many they are in total," Moneo answered.

"All right, I was thinking me and Frank would go there and see whether Steven has the employees in a file and maybe look around the place -not that you didn't do your job or anything but -you know, just in case..." Fenton said apologetically because on some of his cases, the police had thought he was interfering with their business.

But Civera brushed him off. "Of course, you were hired for the job in the first place."

"Well, we'll let you know if we get something," with that Fenton and Frank left, breaking through the media again, to the car and drove to the concert hall.

Unsurprisingly the lawn was crowded with journalists.

"The news certainly spread." Fenton left the car in some distance from the place and he and Frank were let through one of the backdoors, unseen.

Inside the atmosphere was calmer but still tensed. Steven, Catrina and Martin Garcia stood close to the stage, talking to three gentlefolks, two men and a woman, all very formal and serious looking.

They spoke in english but all with different accents. One of the formal-people, the older looking man, was talking to Steven.

"I don't think the show will be pulled off or delayed even if Ms. Arcens won't be found," he said with a gravelly voice.

"Thattt ish crrrruel," the woman said.

"Maybe with a longer notice but there are two days to the semi-finals!" the man answered her.

"Then be glad that we have until friday or even saturday morning, Ms. Arcens participates for a Big 4 country," Garcia said dryly.

"So will I get more security team or not?" Steven asked impatiently, probably referring to the beginning of the conversations.

There were a few silent seconds, then the other man said: "It really depends on whether the appropriations committee will give us more money."

Steven stared at him in disgust. "For Christ's sakes, there are missing people here and all you people think of is money!"

"I'm sorry, Belson, really...but that's just how it works," the man said, he was probably british too.

Steven swallowed the vituperation he wanted to say to these people and just glared.

"Aren't you in _charge_ of the appropriations committee, can't you _order_ them to put more budget in this," Fenton said, he turned the words to the man who had last spoken.

The british man wetened his lips. "Mr. Hardy," he sighed, obviously knowing Fenton, "This is a very slow system, we would have to get a meeting with the president back in the headquarters in Switzerland, then he would have to bring in a meeting with the council and-"

-"What about those closed session-kinda-meetings?"

-"Slim chance, very slim."

"I see you know Mr. Carlton," Steven said to Fenton and then turned to Frank, "But Frank, this is Mr. Rupert Carlton, he's from BBC, and these are Mrs. Ivanova Czapinaska from TVP, the Polish puplic tv and señor Juan Valbuena, he's from TVE, he's a native. They're all vice-presidents of EBU, there are four of them in total." then he introduced Frank and Fenton.

"So now we have two people missing?" Carlton said.

"Three," Frank corrected.

-"Three?"

"Yes, my younger son, also," Fenton said.

"Four," Steven cut in.

"Excchuse me?" Mrs. Czapinaska looked at him quizzically like all the others.

"My..erm...boyfriend's daughter," Steven looked at Fenton, "She wasn't with Marco after all and she hasn't been here...Bill's somewhere looking for her now..."

"Please, be joking," Frank begged.

"Unbe_liev_able," Fenton groaned.

"So, beside that, what's going on?" Steven asked him.

-"Oh-yeah. I was wondering if you have a list of all the people working on security here?"

-"Yes, it's in my...uh.."office," follow me," he turned to the vice-presidents and excused himself, then went out of the saloon to the lobby and from there up stairs to a narrow hallway.

"You think it's a security breach?" he asked.

"I think it's very possible," Fenton answered.

Steven nodded but he was clearly unhappy about it. He stopped at the end of the hallway, pulled up a key from his pocket and opened the door, which led to a small messy room. By the window was a small desk filled with papers and all kinds of trash.

He found a thick dossier in a self behind the desk and handed it to Fenton.

Fenton looked at it and sighed.

"You asked for it," Steven played with the keys in his hands.

Fenton sighed again.

"Let's make this easy," Frank said, "Has anyone _not_ showed up for work today?"

"That's not 'making it easy', Frank. There are too many people working here and I don't always meet everybody," Steven replied.

"No, of course not, I just got a little impatient," Frank excused.

"I understand," Steven said, then he looked at his watch, "Look, I have to go downstairs and continue with the rehearsals. Take your time, and please lock after you leave," with that he left the room after throwing the keys onto the table.

Fenton shrugged. "Well, maybe we'll learn something from this." He sat down on a folding chair behind the desk and started flipping through the pages.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Ouch! Headache. Darkness. Phooh! Yup, once again, Joe, you were knocked out and kidnapped. And..._ He tried to move. _I'm bound too. Of course._

He blinked a few times. Then he noticed he wasn't alone in the dark dusty room, which probably was a basement or an attic somewhere, lit by nothing but a beam of light coming through a window, probably a streetlight. By his side on a wooden chair, sat a young woman, her arms bound behind her back and each ankle to the clubfeet and on her other side was a man bound the same way. _A chubby bald man about fifty, with a black typical spanish mustache..._Joe sighed. _Well, I found them, _he thought sarcasticly and looked back at Isabelle Arcens and Salvatore Elina.

Joe observed the woman more closely. She had long dark hair tied in a ponytail, hazel eyes and thick lips which reminded Joe, at first thought, of Angelina Jolie.

"Comment allez-vous?"

Joe shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hm? What did you say?"

"Pardon, je ne parle pas le anglais," she said.

"Excuse me, I don't speak French," Joe said.

"Isabelle asked how you were doing," Mr. Elina explained with a very spanish accented english.

"Oh...and what do I tell her...? Señor Elina...?" Joe asked unsure.

-"Well, how are you doing?"

-"Fine."

-"Then say _'ca va_.'"

Joe did that and added one of few words he knew in french: "Merci."

"Quel est votre nom?" Ms. Arcens asked and both she and Joe looked at their 'co-captive' for translation.

"What's your name?" Elina said.

"Joe Hardy."

"Why are you here, Joe?" the man asked slowly.

"Because I was looking for you two," Joe replied.

"You were?" the director raised his eyebrows, "You're not a police officer, are you?"

"No, I guess I'd be assorted as an amateur detective, my father is a private investigator who was hired to find you, his name is Fenton Hardy," Joe said.

-"Ah, I've heard of him, american, yes?"

Joe nodded. Then he turned his attention to the nervous looking young woman. "Comment alle-va?"

"Comment allez-vous," Elina corrected and Joe repeated.

She smiled. "Comme ci, comme ca."

Joe took that as 'all right,' jugding on her smile and the way she shrugged her shoulders, "How about you?" he asked Salvatore.

"All right but¡Dios! This _is_ getting tiresome," he answered.

-"How long have I been here?"

-"Some hours, I am not sure. I can't see my...clock," Salvatore tugged on the ropes behind his back -indicating his watch -and it really hurt him because he had been tied up for so long.

-"Seeing that you're alive- and having been here for a long time- I assume we get to eat?" Joe said, his stomach growled.

Salvatore nodded.

Joe had an idea. "Do they let us go while we eat?"

His interlocutor nodded again. "But they have guns so I would not try anything."

"No, not yet, not before I've gotten out of these ropes," Joe agreed.

Just then they heard a key being turned in the keyhole.

Joe locked his eyes on the door._ Come on, you coward!_

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_**Well, that's it for now. There are three chapters left of the story but I don't know when I'll be able to update again because I don't know when I get an internet connection in Reykjavik,hopefully next week. Thanks for reading (ifyou do, that is...)!**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Sniff…everyone's forgotten me…well, maybe not entirely:**_

_**To Annie Mara: Thanks a million for reading! Actually the translation to Reykjavík is more like this: Smokey creek but Smokey harbour would be in Icelandic Reykjahöfn. Reykjavík however is the capital city in the country and comparing to USA it's probably the only decent-sized town in it –merely –and it's nowhere near my village…Anyway, thanks, again for reading!**_

_**To Kolla: Takk, takk, takk, billjón sinnum! You're the best, heyrumst og haltu áfram að lesa!**_

**Chapter 10**

The door opened slowly, a hand reached inside and pushed the switch beside the doorframe that turned on a single, naked light bulb in the ceiling. Maggie entered the room holding a shopping bag and after her a man who Joe half-expected to be Steven- and his stomach tightened in anger- but...

Aiming a newly silver shining Colt Defender at the captives, William West stood in the doorway and contemplated the bound people with amusement. Then he strode over to Joe, grabbed him by the hair and stared into his eyes.

"What did you see in our room?" he demanded.

Determined not to flinch, Joe stared back with dark eyes. "Their security cards," he replied, meaning Elina's and Arcens's. Everybody who were working at the contest in any way had to wear those security cards to make sure that some one irrelevant and not allowed to be in the area, like some reporters, weren't sneaking around.

Bill nodded and let go of him. "But that's hardly evidence enough," he wondered.

"True," Joe said, "So you kinda screwed up: taking me here."

"Maybe," Bill agreed, "But, now that you are here...eat your dinner, and try anything..." he finished the threat by waving the gun.

Joe rolled his eyes and let Maggie untie his arms as she'd done with the other two. Salvatore stretched his arms happily but was wary about Bill.

Dinner was fast food: deep-fried chicken legs with salad and rice.

"Charles Bradstow?" Joe questioned while eating.

-"My ex-boyfriend's name," Bill grinned, a bit proud.

"Quelle heure est-il?" Ms. Arcens asked.

Bill looked at his watch. "Onze heures et quart, mademoiselle Arcens," he answered politely in quite flawless french. He noticed Joe's curious look.

"The time," he explained, "It's quarter past eleven."

"Why did you kidnap her?" Joe hinted at the woman.

-"She overheard me talking to Ramón-"

-"Ramón?"

"-Ah," Bill snapped his fingers in annoyance at himself then pointed a finger at Joe, "You're tricky."

"So Ramón's working for you, how did you persuade him?" Joe kept on asking seeing that Bill was not a pro in this and was careless with what information he gave away.

And Bill shrugged. "I threatened to tell his family that he's gay and of our little...affair...appearently it wouldn't sit to well with his family 'cause he was very persuasible..."

"Ramón's gay?" Joe chuckled.

"You made mistakes there, "Salvatore said, "Isabelle hardly speaks a word in english."

"Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know?" Bill retorted.

"All right, now. You've talked enough," Maggie said.

"You're right, dinner's over," Bill stood from the chair he'd been sitting in. "Here, I'll tie'em up again," he handed her the gun.

"Tu crapule!" Isabelle spat out while he was retying her arms. He clenched his lips in anger and turned her chair around and slapped her across the face.

"Dad! Don't, she'll bruise!" his daughter reminded him.

"So...you're planning on letting her go?" Joe asked.

Bill didn't answer but moved on to tie Salvatore, who frowned but didn't resist.

And then he went to tie Joe.

Joe surpressed a grin, he had the feeling they were getting the upper hand. He'd remembered one of the oldest tricks Fenton had taught him and Frank, he flexed his muscles and kept his arms as far away from the chairback as he could without looking suspicious while he was being tied.

"So your boss ain't gonna pay us a visit," he asked when Bill had moved away and taken the Colt from Maggie.

Bill looked at him and snorted. "Boss? I'm my own boss."

-"Steven has nothing to do with this?"

Bill snorted again. "Steven? As in Steven Belson? Oh, yes, he has something to do with this but honestly, do you see sweet, 'innocent,' loving Steven in my shoes?"

"Dad, come on! Stop prattling" Maggie urged.

"You feeling bad, Maggie?" Joe asked kindly- in a sarcastic way.

"Shut up!" she spat at him and then left the room.

-"You ought to teach your daughter some manners..."

Bill grabbed his collar. "You _are_ allowed to bruise!" But he didn't hit him.

Instead he walked to one corner of the room where, Joe now noticed, there was a small radio on the floor, knelt to plug it and turned it on. Then he stood up and left, locked the door behind him.

Joe smiled and relaxed his muscles. The ropes were loose around his wrists. "They are so scared, they don't have a clue what they're doing," he said confidently, more to himself than the other people in the room.

"Why did he turn on the radio?" he asked Salvatore.

Mr. Elina shrugged. "He does that sometimes, don't ask me why."

Joe shrugged too and started to undo the ropes.

"How did you do that?" Salvatore asked wide-eyed.

-"Just a trick my dad taught me," he was out of the ropes within minutes and then started to free Salvatore and Isabelle, it took a while but there were no interruptions.

"Merci, merci!" the young woman said over and over, hugging Joe, between rubbing her sore wrists.

Salvatore was in worse condition. His wrists were bleeding from the nudging of the rough ropes, he had been beaten, maybe not much but he looked worse than he felt, his face was bruised, his lower lip was split, he was pale and weak but fortunately there was nothing serious, although the ropes would probably leave scars.

The door was locked. Joe tried to kick it open but it was too strong. He checked the window but realised it was too small for any of them, it was dark outside and the surroundings gave him no idea of where they were, Isabelle had been blindfolded when she was taken there and Salvatore unconsicous, just like Joe.

Joe sighed deeply. "Well, that sucks!" he growled and sunk back onto the chair.

"So what to we do now?" Salvatore asked.

The radio had begun broadcasting the overnight-program- music- starting with the spanish eurovision song.

Joe frowned and said with disgust, because he hated to say it: "Wait."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill and Maggie drove to the hotel in silence. As soon as Bill had beaten Joe down they had disposed of the security cards, which Maggie had inadvertently left on the dinner table, by burning them. Those were bad mistakes and Maggie was mad at herself, now when she thought of it, she knew she should have tried to make an excuse instead of having her dad knock Joe out. He was too slippery.

"Dad?"

Bill, who was driving, didn't take his eyes of the road.

"Daddy? What are we going to do?"

"Nothing," came the simple answer, "We'll go home and catch some sleep."

End of discussion, she knew but he also knew her dad had plans.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many hours later -the next day- Fenton and Frank Hardy were going through the staff's profiles. Finally Fenton put his dossier away and stretched his arms with a low growl-sound.

"You know something, Frank?"

Frank looked up from the papers. "Yes, dad?"

-"This really isn't taking us anywhere."

-"Glad you finally realized." He also layed the dossier on the table and leaned foward. "So...?"

He stopped when his father suddenly narrowed his eyes at something and bent down under the table and took up a brown leather handbag, it was open, inside was an envelope, which was open too with the corner of a photograph coming out. It showed a bruised jaw and more of a bruised face when Fenton pulled the picture out of the envelope with his handkerchief covering his fingers. He recognized the man on it.

"What the hell..." he whispered. He turned the photograph around to show Frank but then he noticed that something was written on it's back. _'To Steven. Dreams come true.'_

"Wow," Frank said, "We got him nailed...if only we could identify him."

Fenton pulled up his cell phone, called Steven and asked him to come to the office right away.

He was there in a few minutes. "What's going on? You found something?" he asked hopefully.

"Do you know this bag?" Fenton questioned and held up the handbag.

"It's mine...or it looks just like it," Steven replied, "Why?"

"We found _this_ in it," Fenton showed him the photo.

Steven gasped. "Oh God, that's...!"

-"Salvatore Elina," Frank finished.

Fenton showed Steven the backside of the photo. "Does this mean anything to you?"

After he read it, Steven blinked a few times, then collapsed onto a chair and hid his face in his hands. "Oh God, oh god, this is so bad..." he mumbled.

-"Come on, Steven, suck it up. What is this?"

-"It...it's..." Steven finally managed to choke it out in a whisper, "Bill..."

"Bill? As in, Bill, your boyfriend?" Frank asked.

Steven nodded. "It's his handwriting and...and when we met, we were talking and I told him it was my greatest dream to direct eurovision someday."

"All right, I'm gonna call the police. You just relax, ok?" Fenton said and dialed the number.

"No, I must go back downstairs," Steven said stubbornly and sniffed.

"Fine," Fenton sighed, just then someone answered on the other line, "Yes? Hello, this is Fenton Hardy, can I speak to either chief Serafin Civera or sergeant José Moneo...?"

Frank tapped on Steven's shoulder. "Come on, I'm coming back with you."

"What do I tell the media?" Steven wondered on the way down.

"I think, that until we've gotten him, you should say as little as possible...just that we're in control of the situation, so people won't panic," there was a little silence before Frak switched to more casual subject, "So, who's rehearsing now?"

"Um..." Steven mentally went through his schedule, "Russia, I think."

"Alezjandra?" Frank asked excitedly. He had learned the name of the russian competitor since the first time he saw her.

Steven smirked a little. "Yes, Alezjandra."

-"What are her chances?"

-"Fairly good, I'd say. Those sexy acts usually do very well."

Soon they heard the blaring music from the saloon. And Russia was indeed rehearsing.

_"-you took the crown_

_to my heart _

_your eyes overthrowing me, they: _

_Shake me, take me, _

_make me go crazy_

_with desire_

_Heat me, seize me_

_never release me_

_from their fire._

_From the ever burning fire_

_in your eyes-."_

-Said the chorus of the song, _Fire (in your eyes). _Frank's absolute favourite.

Steven scanned the area to see if Bill was still there, although he very much doubted it -and very much hoped not.

Martin Garcia stormed towards them. "What is going on? Steven, there are _two_ days 'til the semi-finals! " he shouted.

"I know! Something came up...about Salvatore and Ms. Arcens and Joe," Steven answered calmly, "We found out who took them and why."

As the people on the stage had stopped when Steven entered and it really echoed in there, most everyone close to the stage heard those words. There was quite amount of reporters present and now they rushed to Steven.

"Calm down, people!" Frank called over the row of upset voices, "Steven, why don't you take them to the press-tent for your statement so Garcia can continue with the rehearsal here," he suggested.

Steven agreed the idea and asked the people to follow him after Frank had reminded him, with a wishper, not to say too much.

When the police arrived, Fenton had contacted all the security and body guards through their tranceivers and told them to stay on guard. The police officers then took the task to search for Bill.

"Well, we got the outside covered," Fenton snorted, looking at the growing group of reporters in front of the building and around the press-tent. Then he turned to sergeant Moneo. "All right. He came in with Steven this morning. Garcia tells me he was mostly working with the sound crew...then what?"

"Then, Marco Vélez told me, he went to fetch extension cord from the basement. And then...he hasn't been seen." the sergeant concluded.

-"So we search the basement."

-"Bien, vamos."

Frank and Miguel Quierra were already on their way backstage through the saloon. They didn't notice the shadow creeping behind the commentator cells, towards the entrance. When he didn't have the cells cover anymore he grabbed the first person that passed his hiding place, clasped a hand over her mouth and pointed his gun to her head.

Alezjandra, who was on her way from the saloon, gasped and whimpered and tried to struggle free, she bit her attacker's hand...he let go of her mouth but manged to grab her back by the shoulder but was too late, she screamed: "Help! Help me!"


	11. Chapter 11

_**To Annie Mara and Kolla: Thanks a bunch darlings!**_

**Chapter 11**

Bill cursed and quickly knocked the woman out with the gunstock so she went limp. And quiet. But the harm was already done.

The crew members and competitors, who heard the yells, turned around and froze in shock at the sight.

Frank watched helplessly from the stage. Miguel observed the circumstances, then tugged at Frank's sleeve and motioned for him to follow. They crept backstage.

"If nobody moves, no one has to get hurt," Bill said to his audience. He began to move slowly, still carrying Alezjandra's limp body, backwards to the entrance. No one moved.

The singer started to come around, she was too dazed to resist but Bill forced her to walk with him. He could hardly believe his luck when he saw that the front hall was supervised by one guard, a very pale and breathless Ramón Richardo.

"I-I knocked out the cop that was here," he said nervously.

"Good boy," Bill complimented, "I'm leaving."

-"I know."

"Where's the cop?"

Ramón pointed. "There, in the corner."

"Go get his gun," Bill commanded. Once he had another weapon he sighed deeply. Then he looked back at the young man.

"Are you going to turn yourself in?"

Ramón nodded miserably.

-"Well then...Wish me luck."

-"I hope you get caught."

Bill didn't even bother to say goodbye to his lover. He pressed the Defender between Alezjandra's shoulderblades and held the cop's gun behind his back and headed outside. "Walk faster," he hissed into the woman's ear.

She bit her lip to keep from crying and obeyed.

The press-tent was full so a few reporters were outside it, trying to hear something or catch a photo. Bill was half-way to the parking lot when he was spotted and people began shouting.

Dozen of police officers, including their chief, immediately came running out of the concert hall with guns drawn.

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Frank and Miguel got outside through the backdoor. They took a decent detour to get behind Bill, who they knew was headed for the parking lot.

Miguel tried to get an eyecontact with chief Civera. When he succeeded, he hoped the chief had gotten the signal.

And Serafin Civera started speaking. He read Bill his rights, first in spanish, then in english. "You cannot go anywhere, Mr. West. Make this easier on yourself and surrender!"

By now everyone had left the press-tent, the lawn was once again over-crowded with mass-media flashing cameras and video cameras, and waving microdisk recorders. Everything was being showed live on the spanish national TV and most probably BBC as well.

Steven stood in the tent's 'doorway' and painfully watched the incident.

"Put the speech on hold until you _have_ caught me," Bill answered chief Civera. Just then he caught a movement from the corner of his eye.

Frank and Miguel had both lunged at him trying to knock away the guns. Miguel was able to bend Bill's arm until he let go of the gun in his right hand but he ducked his arm from Frank's blow and lashed out at him with the gunstock, hitting Alezjandra in the process and she and Frank hit the ground, rolling a little bit.

"Are you ok?" he asked her.

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. Then she suddenly threw her arms around Frank and hugged him, "благодарность, thank you, thank you!" she sobbed into his neck.

Frank couldn't help but blush when he noticed at least one of the cameras had zoomed in on them, hugging on the ground.

Bill was strong and he seemed to be getting the upper-hand in the fight. The police aimed their guns but didn't fire because they were afraid of shooting officer Queirra, or Frank or the woman.

At last Bill got both of his guns from the ground while he had hit the cop in the arm causing him to drop his. Panthing heavily he aimed the gun at Miguel, he yanked him up by the hair.

"You like it rough, don't you?" he said sinisterly to the Spaniard who held his hands up in defeat. For now.

Bill put a gun to Miguel's head while backing to the nearest car. He smashed the window on the driver's side with the other gun and opened the car. He got in without loosing Miguel from the barrel's sight, put the car in gear and, with screeching tires, he sped off.

"Dispara! Dispara en los neumáticos! " the chief commanded. The police officers aimed for the tires but didn't get much chance to shoot before the car was in the traffic and they didn't risk shooting innocent people's cars. The chief gave more orders to have the fugitive followed.

Alezjandra's crew was all over her, smoothing her in russian and with hugs. She smiled at Frank who felt butterflies wave their wings in his stomach. Then he turned to Miguel. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, fine. I will be black and blue tomorrow though. Carajo, he's strong, almost ripped the head off my torso. But I'm good," he added manly.

-"What now?"

-"Chief will have the train stations and airports monitored."

The chief came over to them. "The best thing for him is to try to catch a train to France. I'm going back to the station now to make sure he can't get anywhere. I should alarm the french and portugeese police to watch the country borders," he said to himself.

"Oh yeah, I bet the french aren't too fond of him, he kidnapped their representative in the contest," Frank said.

Steven joined them, "Will you catch him?" he asked Civera.

-"We will."

Steven swallowed.

"Are you gonna be all right?" Frank asked him.

"No but I've got to get back to the rehearsals...Alezjandra, are you hurt?" he turned to the russian woman.

She shook her head. "нет, I'm fine."

-"Good, can you continue with the rehearsal?"

-"Can _you_?"

Steven smiled a little.

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Fenton and José had been wandering around the enormorous basement for sometime when the sergeant's CB buzzed and he had to leave.

Both curiosity and a gut feeling told Fenton that he should continue to investigate the basement. So he did just that by himself...

Suddenly he heard a sound coming from one of the doors in the hallway. He put his ear against the door. It was music. Pop music in english. The door was locked but Fenton saw a key hanging on a nail in the wall beside it. He slowly opened the door when suddenly someone grabbed him from inside and slammed him to the floor.


	12. Chapter 12

_**As always, Annie Mara and Kolla, thanks for reading. This is the final chapter, enjoy:**_

**Chapter 12**

_"Polestar- rise and shine_

_I'll be running in your direction-" _

Joe hummed silently with the song that was stuck in his head, he was beginning to know the lyrics. It had been played over and over on the radio station over the night. Salvatore had told him it was the icelandic eurovision song. It was, along side with Russia and UK predicted to win.

"But those predictions have been wrong for years," he had added.

In the morning the radio had broadcasted news where, Salvatore told them, they were still being looked for but so far to no avail. Then there came more music and in between interviews with some contestants, composers and others.

And, currently, it was playing the icelandic song, _Polestar_, performed by a group called Arctica.

Suddenly Joe heard something outside the door. He quickly motioned for Salvatore to take the right side of the door while he was on the left, ready to take down whoever who enterd the room.

Isabelle stayed in one corner of the room and layed low.

The door opened.

Joe grabbed the person, slammed him down and raised a fist to knock him out. The fist stopped in mid-air.

"Dad?"

"Joe!"

"What's up? Haven't seen you in a while. What took you so long?" Joe helped his father to his feet.

"Hey! I've been working very hard to find your sorry ass and this is how you pay me," Fenton said and rubbed the back of his head, although his lower back had taken the impact of the fall.

-"Did you find him?"

-"Bill? I don't know, the police might have by now."

"Hopefully. Um...dad, you haven't met Salvatore Elina," Joe turned to the ex-director.

"No, I haven't. Nice to meet you, are you all right?" Fenton held out a hand to him.

Salvatore shook it and smiled. "Am now."

"And Ms. Arcens..." Joe introduced.

"Bonjour. Comment ca va?" Fenton shook hands with the woman.

She smiled. "Ca va bien, merci, monseur," she replied.

"Good," Joe rubbed his hands together, "Well, now that everyone knows everyone -let's get the hell out of this rathole."

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"All right. Where is he?" Frank said loudly. He had heard people whisper about his brother being found.

Joe, Fenton, Salvatore, Isabelle and Martin were standing the saloon's entrance when Frank, Steven, Miguel and José found them.

"What did you do this time?" Frank demanded from his brother.

Joe shrugged carelessly. "Forced entry." Frank ruffled his hair.

"Salvatore! Are you-" Steven began.

-"I am all right, yes," Salvatore cut him off.

"So much time has gone awaste," Martin nagged.

"The time spent on searching for us included?" Salvatore raised an eyebrow at him.

"That's not what I meant..." came the quiet reply.

"Martin, chill out. You're a workaholic, you know that?" Joe said.

"Did you catch senor West?" Elina asked Moneo after taking a good look at his uniform.

"No but I'm sure it won't be long," the sergeant answered.

Steven winced. "Salvatore, I'm so sorry, I didn't know...I-"

-"Then don't be sorry. You didn't know, " the older director cut the younger one off again with a smile, "Now, I'd like to see my familia."

"I'll take you home, " José offered. They left.

"Quierra, why don't you accompany Ms. Arcens to her room and tell her personal crew that she's been found," Fenton said to Miguel.

"What about Maggie?" Joe asked when there were the four of them left.

"Maggie! I haven't seen her since yesterday. Is she involved?" Steven asked.

-"Yeah, she is."

"I bet that's where your troubles began. You always fall for the wrong women, Joe," Frank said and shook his head knowingly.

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Fenton woke up around 10 o'clock when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Hardy?" Martin's voice came through, "Have you seen Steven this morning?"

-"No, how could I? I haven't been awake this morning."

Martin ignored Fenton's sour tone. "Could you please go check on him. He should have been here long time ago.The dress rehearsal-takes for the semi-finals are today."

-"All right, I'll get back to you."

They hung up.

Fenton sighed and got up and got washed and dressed. Then he went over to Steven's room and knocked. "Steven? Steven are you there?"

No one answered.

"Damn," Fenton said to himself.

"What's going on?" Joe said huskily from the doorway of their room, bare above his waist.

"Steven either won't answer the door or isn't in the room," Fenton told him.

Joe went back inside their room and put on a t-shirt. Then he went out to the balconies and climbed over. Steven was on the couch in the living room but Joe quickly made his way to the front door to let his dad in.

Empty beer and vodka bottles filled the living room table. Steven sat on the couch, his eyes red and swollen, his hand clenched over the nozzle of a whiskey bottle.

"Jesus, Steven...you drank all this?" Fenton looked over the room. The cd player was playing the eurovision cd, exactly the song the was still stuck on Joe.

_"Polestar_

_please be there_

_if you disappeared, I couldn't bear-"_

"Is he passed out?" Joe asked and waved a hand over Steven's open eyes, "Steven, please, say something."

Steven took a deep breath. "He's gone," he said sadly.

"He cheated on you, did you know that?" Joe said softly.

Steven shook his head. Not disbelieving but like it was something he expected. "I'm not good enough," he slurred.

-"No..._he_ wasn't good enough...you gotta know that..."

-"And you've got to know that your contest is tomorrow!_ Tomorrow_, Steven," Fenton thundered, "Your greatest dream... _Dreams come true_, remember? At least show us that you worked hard to make it happen. That Salvatore hasn't been missing for nothing. _That you care_!"

Steven looked up at him, shameful. "I..." he sniffed, "I'm gonna...take a shower," he said in a small voice.

"You do that," Fenton said encouraging.

Joe waited until Steven had locked himself in the bathroom before turning to his father. "Dad, you dramaqueen!"

Fenton started gathering the bottles. "Well, it got him up, didn't it?"

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Along side the semi-final dress rehearsal there was an emergency-shooting. The rehearsal was recorded, and the recording would be aired if something went wrong live so the people at home wouldn't notice anything. That's why everything had to be so exact on the rehearsal. A lot of close-up shots had to be cut off from the russian act because Alezjandra had bruises on her neck. Same story with the french act but not until the finals. Isabelle hadn't bruised as much as Alezjandra.

The day went on and no news came from the police about Bill or Maggie.

Then day turned to night and everybody had a good night's rest. Although the case was offically over, the Hardys stayed because EBU had offered them free seats on the show, which they gladly accepted.

Next morning were more rehearsals and more press conferences. Evening wore on and at half past seven the saloon started to fill with people.

Outside the entrance a few people had put up a kind of a stall, but the merchandize were for free.

Steven and the Hardys went outside for a quick breath of fresh air before the show began. Steven reached into the box in the stall, took something and put in his pocket while smiling sweetly at the women who were supervising the stall. "Well," he said when they went back inside, "Let the show begin."

"What was that?" Frank asked curiously.

"This?" Steven pulled the small object from his pocket. Condoms. "Union against AIDS, they spread them around...because there are so many of _us_ gathered here..."

The Hardys nodded, knowing he was talking about gay men.

"You think you'll need that?" Joe grinned.

Steven shrugged. "You'll never know," he said mysteriously.

Frank smiled. "That was a fast recover."

"Are you nervous about the show?" Fenton asked.

-"I'll be all right," Steven said.

The show began.

The eurovision logo and theme appeared on the TV screens. The opening act, a spanish dance, came before the hosts.

Their: "Welcome Europe!" was met by the mad roar of the audience's clap and yells and flag waving. Then, after the hosts had explained the process of the night the performances started.

The Hardys, the Elina-family and Claudia Richardo's family sat together on first row. Claudia's brother had turned in to the police as he intended and had to stay in jail for some time.

Frank was hypnotized under the russian performance. Alezjandra gave her all and when she winked seductively to the camera and it appeared on the big screen, Joe could have sworn his brother was drooling.

Then there was a 10 minutes break while the points were being distributed. In the semi-finals, that part wasn't shown to the audience. When the top ten had been found, the hosts got ten envelopes with the top countries names, they were opened randomly and the country got it's place in the finals.

Frank was happy to see that Russia made it to the finals.

Afterwards, they met Steven. He was delirious with happiness and in some euphoria he informed Frank that Russia had won the semi-finals, followed by Iceland, which meant that they'd most likely stay in top five in the finals. Later that night the Hardys noticed Steven didn't go back to the hotel but sneaked off somewhere in the company of Martin.

The day after, José Moneo contacted Fenton and told him that William West had been captured on a train station in Barcelona, heading to France but Maggie remained unfound. Steven was busy at the emergency-shooting of the finals.

The day of the finals began like any other, with a last dress-rehearsal. In the afternoon the Hardys knew that Maggie had been found in her home in London.

The finals opening act was last year's winners with an awesome light show and an even bigger: "WELCOME EUROPE!" The ten nations that were re-performing, since they got through the semi-finals, were joined by the fourteen countries already placed there.

Frank's favourite was still Russia, while Joe couldn't decide on France or Iceland, that had gotten through the semi-finals.

Again there was a ten minutes break to let each nation count the scores from their televoting.

All the countries, both in the semi-finals and finals gave their votes. A spokesperson appeared on the big screen, usually thanking the hosts for a wonderful show. Then the results from the televoting came: "Romania - 1 point" one of the host repeated in french: "Roumania - Un pointe" -"Croatia - 2 points." -"Croatie - deux pointes." -"Spain - 3 points." -"Espagne - trois pointes..." -

-And so on.

Steven controlled the voting on the computer in front of him with the scoreboard on the screen. The program worked like this, the spokesperson gave the vote, Steven clicked on the country and the number of the points came automaticly. If accidentally clicked twice or at a wrong country the spokesperson would have to start all over.

The audience gave their opinion also, the most of them Spaniards, they cheered if they liked what they got and booed if they didn't. They did that too when something predictable came. Like Cyprus and Greece awarded each other with 12 points as they'd done the past years, and Norway and Iceland.

The past years had been ruled by south-and-eastern Europe but this time the fun was in the north. Russia, Estonia and Iceland ended up in quite a fight.

The last country to give it's votes was Ukraine. By then this was the top three score:

Russia 138 points

Iceland 135 points

Estonia 130 points

Frank was almost chewing his fingernails in excitement.

Ukraine awarded Russia with 8 points but their 12 points goes to...Iceland!

The audience went crazy.

So the top scores were:

Iceland 147 points

Russia 146 points

UK 135 points

Estonia 130 points

Frank whistled loudly between his fingers. "Whoooaa!" The brothers cheered.

The hosts gave their goodbyes and introduced the winners, the icelandic Arctica and the winning song: _Polestar_, and the group started to sing. Fire rain and mica explosions emerged from here and there.

As the song was about to finish, Steven called up the credit list up on the screen.

_-"Polestar -rise and shine_

_I'll be running in your direction_

_Polestar -glow on me_

_I am blinded by your golden reflection_

_Polestar -don't you leave_

_I am longing for your affection_

_You're my guiding light._

_Polestar -rise and shine_

_(you're the only light)_

_I'll be running in your direction_

_(you're the brightest light)_

_Polestar -glow on me_

_(you're the one who watches me)_

_I am blinded by your golden reflection_

_(you're the greatest star)_

_Polestar -don't you leave_

_(you're the wonder star)_

_I am longing for your affection_

_(who always knows where to go...)_

_You're my guiding light."_

_**Okay, about Iceland winning – wishful thinking but ain't gonna happen any time soon I think but it's only a story so what the hell…**_

**_Like I said, that was the end. Thank you all for reading, if you are writers you know how much it means to know someone's reading and if you're not, well, know it's the best…frankly, I was kinda bummed when the amount of readers lessened after my long break there around 8th chapter but hey! Maybe later! Again, thanks for reading. I have many other stories in preparation and the first should be up in the beginning of December. Finally, if you want to know more about Eurovision (or read more of my lyrics ;), please click my username and visit my website._**

**_Ps. I realize I'm advertising but how do you get up if you don't reach, right…? Especially when you're as small as me….. _**


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